Associated Baptist Press – News

for all their embracing of John Paul II’s rhetoric on life ethics regarding abortion and euthanasia, the pope had a more strenuous standard in mind when he first penned the phrase.

“I think Bush and others in some ways tried to position themselves as friends of the pope or sympathetic to the pope by pushing these buttons, but John Paul’s vision of the ‘culture of life’ extended beyond abortion to capital punishment, and from individual morality to corporate morality,” he said. He noted that John Paul II, in his most recent visit with Bush, strongly criticized the war in Iraq. Bush and others have differed with the pope’s teachings on capital punishment, contraception and economic issues.

Many evangelical and other conservative commentators have also praised John Paul II for his role in helping bring an end to communist rule in Eastern Europe. In particular, they credit the pontiff for providing momentum to the “Solidarity” movement that ultimately brought an end to Soviet domination over his native Poland in the early 1980s.

“Evangelical Christians should honor the courage of this man and his historic role in bringing communist tyranny to an end — at least within the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe,” wrote Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in an April 4 column published by the Southern Baptist Convention’s news service.

However, as Favazza and other observers of his papacy have pointed out, John Paul II in later years also strongly criticized the excesses of unrestrained capitalism.