Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate, has an intelligent and differing viewpoint on how the Pope and his church failed in many areas.

Pointing to the Vatican’s silence in the face of the Holocaust, and in the prevention of AIDS today, as well as its alliance with military juntas in South America and denial of birth control, he writes that the Catholic Church, “has been responsible for the retarding of human development on a colossal scale.”

He further deplores the Pope’s fast track advancement to sainthood and canonization of people like Cardinal Stepiac of Croatia, an ally of Hitler. Hitchens calls it “beefing up the faith in outlying regions, where a local hero is considered good for morale.”

The Pope even credited his “miraculous” recovery from an assassination atttempt to the intercession of the Virgin, rather than the skills of his surgeons on the operating table.

Hitchens says that religious doubters, ” are more merciful and understanding than believers, as well as more rational. We do not believe that the pope will face judgment or eternal punishment for the millions who will die needlessly from AIDS, or for his excusing and sheltering of those who committed the unpardonable sin of raping and torturing children, or for the countless people whose sex lives have been ruined by guilt and shame and who are taught to respect the body only when it is a lifeless cadaver like that of Terri Schiavo.”

Justice will not be rendered beyond death, it must be practiced in life.

If the Pope truly had many shortcomings, and by extension the Catholic Church, why has the American media particpated so silently in the veneration and 24 hour news coverage of “the People’s Pope”? The wish not to offend, 67 million consumers or TV viewers, who buy cars, computers, hamburgers, airline tickets. Networks like NBC, with news entertainers Katie Couric, Tim Russert and Brian Williams, are propagandists who would never challenge the system, whether it’s organized religion or free market capitalism and media monopolization. They are the same collaborators who give Tom DeLay respect and put Donald Trump on a pedestal.

We need to evaluate not only the good of the Pope, but how he may have harmed us as well. If we cannot discuss the negative side of religious faith, what hope is there for our critical skills in solving our secular nation’s woes? To not look at the darker side, of ourselves or the Holy Orders is to abandon our powers of intellect and reason.