Half Mast

I can't imagine anyone cares what I think about JPII or his passing into Eternal Whatever, but it's my blog and I'll ponder if I want.

Look, people die every day. Most of them don't have hundreds of thousands of people praying about them, thinking about them, extolling their virtues, bemoaning their failings, and writing on their blogs about their deaths. However, JP2 was a special case. He was, after all, a world leader - that's why the U.S flags have been at half mast since Saturday. Well, he was a religious leader, anyway.

Wait, why are the flags lowered for a religious leader? Hey, Osama bin Laden is a religious leader. He doesn't have as many followers as JP2, but at the rate we're going in Iraq and Afghanistan, by the time he dies, he might. When bin Laden passes, will we lower the flags?

For more thoughtful remarks on the pope, see the stuff below.

BitchPh.D. on goodness and foolishness (I think it's generous, but interesting)
The Heretik on why we should be nice about dead folks (Scroll down to the heading "The Heretik comes not to praise the pope, but to bury him")

There's also interesting stuff at that last link on JP2's confusion about the worthiness of women and ideas that only gay men abuse altar boys (rape is about sex, right? those priests were all gay, and everyone knows Gay is Evil. Or a disease. Condoms are bad! Bad! Don't use them! You'll die faster and rid us of your scourge!) Ahem. Sorry.