DIRELAND

If you've been nauseated, as I have, by the wall-to-wall, hagiographic Popeaphilia leaking from the little screen for the last three days--Wojtyla took longer to croak than Franco-- take some heart from a new poll revealing that a lot of U.S. Catholics would like a Pope with different politics. The daily Polltrack from the National Journal tells us today that the latest Gallup Poll on the subject shows 78 percent said they thought the next pope should allow Catholics to use birth control, and 63 percent said he should allow priests to marry. Fifty-five percent also said they supported a new pope who permitted women to become priests; slightly fewer than half wanted a leader who would allow Catholics to divorce and remarry without an annulment, and 37 percent said the new pontiff should loosen church rules on abortion. I wish we'd seen on U.S. TV the kind of cry of outrage at this socially reactionary Pope that came from the admirable Peter Tatchell, the indefatigable gay and human rights activist who heads the British gay group named, appropriately, OutRage. Tatchell declared:

"History will judge the Pope harshly. His opposition to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV has contributed to millions of people dying an agonising, needless death. Millions of children in developing countries are orphans; having lost their parents to Aids because of the Pope's anti-condom dogma. Pope John Paul II waged a ceaseless war against the human rights of women and gay people; opposing the right of women to control their own fertility; blocking women's equality in the church; and endorsing state-sponsored discrimination against lesbians and gay men."

Not even our spayed U.S. gay groups had the guts to say this. The BBC has a critical piece on the Pope of the kind you won't find on U.S. TV, and it quotes Tatchell, too. You can read the BBC's take  by clicking here. And, in today's Guardian, Terry Eagleton has a sharp-eyed dissection entitled "The pope has blood on his hands," which you can read by clicking here. ...