Sent to Philip Gailey of the St. Petersburg Times on January 10, 2001
by Jim O'Hara
Dear Mr. Gailey,
The American taxpayers gave an all-expense trip to 50 members of Congress to the Vatican in Italy to personally deliver the approved Congressional Gold Medal to Pope John Paul II. This they did on January 8, 2001. The delegation stayed at the Via Veneto hotel right across the street from the US Embassy complex which was abruptly emptied because of fears of terrorist attack. Later, some members of Congress were to go on to Kosovo and then on to Morocco to meet that North African nation's king.
In awarding this medal to the pope, Congress hailed him for using, "his moral authority to hasten the fall of godless totalitarian regimes." Congress ignored at least the following words and deeds of the pope in faulting the US and urging Catholic doctrine to be the law of our land:
-recruited President Bush and Chancellor Kohl to ignite the Yugoslavian civil wars and gain independence for Catholic dominated Slovenia and Croatia;
-succeeded in getting President Clinton to send retired and active military forces to Croatia to train their troops in ways to ethnically cleanse more than 110,000 Serbs from Croatia in 1992-95;
-supported the Catholic guerillas in their 25 year civil war in Indonesia in which more than 200,000 people were killed so East Timor could be an independent Catholic nation;
-declared a cultural war against the US and its laws which he called a "Culture of Death;"
-mandated followers to use political means to impose papal teaching on non-Catholic Americans even if it means losing their lives for it--be martyrs;
-told US bishops to require all Catholic office holders in the US to support Catholic causes or face disciplinary actions, including excommunication;
-supported US bishop's claim they have a God-given mandate to tell their parishioners how to vote;
-claimed the US was a worse threat to Catholicism than atheistic communism ever was;
-labeled the US as immoral for not permitting all persons wanting to migrate to the US to do so;
-urged emerging Third World nations not to be like the US and its individualism and profiteering;
-said leaders of other religions involved in ecumenical conferences led by the Vatican were mistaken in believing unity meant anything but conversion to Catholicism;
-proclaimed no other religions were equal to Roman Catholicism; all other religions had defects;
-had Sen. Chris Smith, NH, introduce a proposed constitutional amendment in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations stating citizenship started in a fertilized egg; Smith was one of those who met with the pope;
-had super Catholic activist Paul Weyrich, "Godfather of the Christian Coalition", endorse John Ashcroft as the Republican's presidential candidate who wants to overturn Roe v Wade as he believes it's an illegal law as the Supreme Court made this law rather than interpreting law;
-the world's only hope for peace is to make Catholic doctrine the law of the land, starting with the US.
I would not expect these facts to be published-- truth hurts more than fiction. Just sharing
with you.
James M. O'Hara
(Not Intended for Newspaper Publication)