LAUD TO POPE JOHN PAULL II

I laud you for most of the other moral systems detecting
And for anything true and holy in them not rejecting -
Those Asian Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist religions,
And Australian hundreds-of-centuries-old native traditions.

I commend you for admitting your predecessors misappredended
The earth's form and position for which Gelileo contended.
To deny the roundness and movement of the globe, in error
The Inquisition persecuted the physicist, inflicted terror!

I praise you for acknowledging that, without linience,
In order to liberate Jurusalem from Islamic obedience,
They fostered crusades in the European Catholics' name,
But they had recourse to violence - inworthy of fame!

I admire you for testifying your anterior ones' lack of ruth
While love of one another is the Bible's thesis of "Truth."
They considered black people slaves because of their race;
And they tolerated, and even encouraged, slave trade!

I respect you for apologizing, to many a Latin nation
For Spanish past roles in South-America Evangelization.
Delegated by the Church, Spain took advantage of the situation
To practice cruelly massacre, tyranny, and exploitation!

I sympathize with your feeling about World War II a sharp pain:
The Vatican's cooperation with the Nazis - a dark stain!
I am sorry for you yielding to the Vietnamese protestation
Of their own country's prelacy against your ordination!

I extol you rectifying the doctrine of the Virgin Mary:
Whether body and soul into heavenly glory it does vary.
To inherit sin - before that conception - she was bound!
To exclude her - from natural death - there is no ground!

I love your getting prepared for the century twenty-first:
All predictions of the near end only mean a frenzy burst!
I acclaim your recognition of the processes of Evolution:
Such reasoning beyond Creation is quite a Revolution!

I thank you for teaching Christians to repent of their sin
Committed in the past by certain Pontiffs and their kin.
Such lucidity, justice, and courage, of a man capable,
Lets me believe that you, the Pope, is not mistakable!

("This Land of Promises")