From: Robert Sungenis Responds to a Patron Regarding Criticism of John Paul II (May 2011). Read it and weep . . . All words that follow are Bob's own, from this pathetic article.
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The very things that you, as a Catholic, would have vehemently condemned if a Protestant had done them, now excuse them [sic] because a pope does them.
. . . you keep silent about the evils JP2 perpetrated in his pontificate.
Is the pedophile/homosexual scandal true? These are things that JP2 perpetuated and or ignored, as the case may be.
I complain about the blatant transgressions against our Catholic tradition and morals. I listed about two dozen of them that occurred in the pontificate of JP2.
JP2 knew of the scandals. He simply chose to ignore them and blame the media for making false accusations.
I’m not going to thwart God’s program by calling a bad guy a good guy.
. . . the poor pontificate of JP2 . . .
He went his own way and ignored much of the tradition before him.
I doubt the veracity of the miracle, and I doubt the veracity of the people doing the investigation. . . . It is blasphemous against heaven to claim that heaven is giving its approval of John Paul’s beatification by such a flimsy “miracle.”
Don’t try to escape the problems with JP2’s beatification by creating a domino effect for the whole Church. JP2 is the anomaly, not the Catholic Church at large.
All I’m concerned about is the attempt to make a saint out of someone who had one of the worst pontificates in regards to doctrine and morals in Catholic history. As regards your recounting of all the suffering John Paul II experienced, so be it. One might think that with all that suffering it would have motivated JP2 to be more obedient to Catholic tradition and be more motivated to clean up the Church. But instead of motivating him to be more obedient to God, he went the other way, allowing pagans to pray to their false gods and allowing homosexuals and pedophiles to run rampant through our Church.
I didn’t see JP2 correct any of his sins. I saw him exonerate bishops and priests who were known to be homosexuals and pedophiles right up to the very end of his pontificate.
My prediction is that JP2 will not be canonized. His beatification will sit on the shelf for centuries, which is not abnormal. Heaven will simply not give its credence to canonizing such a wayward pope as JP2. . . . we are only suffering the punishment heaven has meted out for John Paul II’s idolatry.
The problem was that quite often JP2 didn’t even pay attention to his own encyclicals. He said one thing and did another.
. . . there is also danger with a pope who decides to do things his own way and forsake the Catholic tradition. . . . you need to be just as cautious about what the pope is telling you, especially when that pope (as is the case of JP2) decided he isn’t going to take the papal oath to protect the Church.
The pope is supposed to be a servant of tradition; the 263 popes that went before him; not a neophilist.
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More calumnies (some responses of mine bracketed and in blue):
I feel sorry for Catholic apologists today. They have two choices: (a) either they defend the abominations of JP2 (e.g., Assisi) or (b) they grin and bear it and try to ignore them as much as possible. I also feel sorry for them because the same critical thinking that led them to see the errors of Protestantism, is now the very critical thinking they must stuff away when they see JP2 and other popes acting in ways that their previous Protestant denominations did not act . . .
We've had bad and heretical popes in the past, so it's not like a bad or heretical pope today would be a surprise to us.
At the least, a sound warning should be given about his teachings; and sainthood should be out of the question.
The Catholic Church is the true Church. That is a fact and I will defend it with my life. But whether the popes and prelates are living up to that ideal is another story altogether. In my opinion, JP2 didn't even come close, and Benedict seems to be falling behind as well.
My allegiance is to Christ. He is the head of the Church, not the pope.
[pure, Protestant "either/or" false dichotomy, eminently worthy of Luther or Calvin. This is one instance of dozens of aspects that Bob has retained from his Protestant days: things that don't fit with the Catholic Mind. For a supposed Catholic apologist to think and write a sentence like this is utterly ridiculous and scandalous]
And since Scripture says that even if an angel from heaven came down and preached another Gospel to me, I am commanded by God not to believe it, otherwise I will be accursed (Gal 1:8-9). If that warning applies to an angel, it certainly applies to a pope, especially one with the doctrinal problems and moral laxities like that of John Paul II.
From: Response to Dave Armstrong Regarding Universal Salvation and Hell in the Teaching of John Paul II (11 May 2011):
I find it interesting that, of all the doctrinal and moral aberrations I’ve listed about John Paul II, he chooses only two issues that he thinks he can defend. Catholic apologists routinely sidestep defending John Paul II’s telling pagans to pray to their false gods; the sex scandals; the money scandals; the placement of wayward clerics; altar girls, and all the rest.
[as I've said, I don't respond to most of Bob's rantings because they aren't worthy of any reply; period. But this accusation that I ignore all these things in general is blatantly false. I have defended the Assisi ecumenical conferences on my blog by posting two lengthy explanations of them (one / two). I've defended his kissing the Koran (the huge, unutterably evil scandal in the minds of "trads") at great length twice (one / two / three), and later I defended those two posts. I've dealt with JPII's treatment of heterodox dissidents; I treated the issue of altar girls (though not at great length); I have always talked frankly about the sex scandals, with many many links posted.So, nice try Bob, but no cigar. Your tried-and-untrue polemical cliches against actual Catholic apologists like myself don't work with me.]
As we will see below, John Paul II’s personal teaching on Hell is different than what is presented in the Catechism.
The first thing we see is Mr. Armstrong admitting that John Paul II does, indeed, use universal salvation
language in his teaching.
[I did no such thing. What I did (and it went right over Bob's head because he habitually doesn't grasp Newmanian analogical reasoning, that I use all the time), was argue that [hostile opposing position adopted only for the sake of argument] if John Paul II used "universalistic" language, then by the same token, so does Scripture (many examples given). But we know Scripture doesn't teach universal salvation (agreed premise); therefore, by the same token, John Paul II doesn't either, by similarity to scriptural language and many counter-examples. It's a form of the reductio ad absurdum or "turn the tables" argument. Rather, both teach universal atonement, which is a far different notion (all have sufficient grace to be saved if only they will cooperate with it; but not all are saved). From this reasoning chain Bob amazingly arrives at the "conclusion" that I think JPII used "universal salvation language in his teaching." It's truly amazing and pathetic. But this kind of noncomprehension and hence unwitting misrepresentation of other positions is sadly common with Bob.]
Thus we must assume that Mr. Armstrong is of the opinion that the exegete of Scripture, which John Paul II claimed to be, has no responsibility to make Scripture clearer where Scripture seems to be ambiguous or contradictory.
[It's not at all. It makes perfect sense, interpreted as a harmonious whole. But that is Bob's problem, too. He pulls Scripture from here and there, like fundamentalists do, and so he often comes up with an absurd hermeneutic and exegesis. Now he applies the same deficient method to the statements of popes. It's an inability (for whatever reason: I say it is undue Protestant fundamentalist influence) to understand language both in its context and in the totality of the author's thought: whether concerning popes, or Vatican II, or Holy Scripture itself.]
No one ever used the excuse that they could teach with imprecision and ambiguity because Scripture itself was often confusing.
[of course that was not my argument at all (insofar as Bob is applying this to me, in addition to JPII). It is a cynical conclusion of Bob's, in reply to a mythical caricature of a distortion of my true argument]
when John Paul II uses universalist language in his speeches, Mr. Armstrong exempts him from the responsibility of clearly explicating the truth and claims, rather, that he can use the same ambiguous language that Scripture uses.
[this proves what I just stated in my previous comment: this is how Bob completely misrepresents my argument. He doesn't get it in the first place.]
Which John Paul II we will get depends on which side of the fence Mr. Armstrong is on that particular day.
[because Bob doesn't comprehend my argument in the first place, he is reduced to pitiful accusations that I am waffling, rather than that he is wallowing in clueless noncomprehension in this instance]
. . . am I one of the only ones brave enough to step off the gravy train and point out that the emperor really has no clothes on?
For the record, let’s see whether I’m taking John Paul II “out of context” as Mr. Armstrong has accused me. It is one thing to give John Paul II the benefit of the doubt when he uses the phrase “universal salvation,” but when we combine it with his statements on whether human beings will even go to hell, and his acts and words at the Assisi events; his praise of Luther; his kissing of the Koran and his general view of other religions, one is hard‐pressed to exonerate him.
It is precisely for statements like these that John Paul II has been accused of either tending to deny the reality of hell taught in Catholic tradition, or actually denying it.
It appears that John Paul II is attempting to soften the reality of hell – a common ploy in post‐Vatican II theology . . .
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