And now for some uncomfortable truths

Chris Wells takes a distrustful delve through what the world's English-language press is saying about Poland

This week we go the U.K.'s Guardian, for a piece of commentary the likes of which I can almost guarantee you will not have read in the local press - either English or Polish.

The author, Polly Toynbee, who is very well-known in her home country, is a social commentator whose left-leaning feminist views are assisted immeasurably by her key talent: that of identifying and castigating the seemingly endless hypocrisy to be found in some of the oldest institutions. And when she turned her attention to the present incumbent at the Vatican this week, she didn't disappoint.

In an article entitled "False paeans to the Pope", the scene was set from the sub-heading, which read, "Twenty-five years on, Karol Wojtyla's (sic) ultra-conservative Vatican deserves far more censure than praise." Ms Toynbee started in by highlighting the extraordinary things that were being said about the Pope during his 25th jubilee, citing commentary in the normally sane Financial Times which called for the current pope to be remembered as John Paul the Great (to date, only two popes in the church's 2,000 year history have earned this soubriquet), which was coupled with a sneer at his critics, namely the self-appointed liberal élites who regard the pope as a hate-figure. For this she did not apologize, and went on to explain exactly why to the pope's critics he is such a figure, beginning with the Polish church itself, and its "resurgent old nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-feminism." This may seem strong until you consider the Polish Radio Maria and the League of Families, which together preach some of the most backward-looking agendas it's possible to get in a democratic society.

Ms Toynbee then continued by quoting a BBC documentary which visited the Philippines, Nicaragua and Kenya and found nothing but suffering caused, in part, by the church's iron grip and its ability to restrict methods of birth control. In these countries it prevents the use of condoms by peddling the lie that they have microscopic holes which allow the Aids virus to pass through (the Vatican claims to have scientific evidence of this, but refuses to release it).

Warming to her theme, she wondered how many people have died of Aids, how many women have died needlessly in childbirth, and how many children have starved in families too large and poor to feed them, all because of the church's policies. Or as she herself puts it, "...these silent, unseen, uncounted deaths at his (the pope's) hand would match that of any self-respecting tyrant or dictator." The main point here is that with Catholicism driving this suffering, the homilies about John Paul's simple piety should not and cannot go unchallenged.

Moving on to the beatification of Mother Teresa, the author quoted from an interview she'd given some years earlier. When pushed on the question of contraception, that babies in Calcutta were born only to starve and die, Mother Teresa responded that every baby that takes a breath is another soul for the glory of God and we're all born to suffer. Theologically sound perhaps, but hardly justification for not letting women choose what they do with their bodies. In any case, the value of sainthoods may be on the way down; Pope John Paul II has in fact elevated more saints than all of the popes in the last four centuries combined, not to mention creating 201 cardinals, all of them staunch conservatives.

The article concluded by attacking all of the world's major religions' generally derogatory position on women's rights, also not without justification. Although Ms Toynbee did stress John Paul II's positive opposition to communism and capital punishment, as well as his criticism of capitalism's naked greed, the fact remains that many in western Europe are non-religious and as such wonder what all the fuss is really about.

In a week when most publications carried a tribute, it was at least refreshing to read some commentary that scratched the surface and took a look at some of the more suspect aspects of the Catholic church's activities.