[Ronin]

What does "uneducated" mean, in this context, if not unawareness of the consequences of actions, and/or unawareness of better options, when it comes to the spread of STDs and the prevention of pregnancy?

On both fronts the church under JPII was resolutely against sexual education and the availability of prescriptions for the poorest and least autonomous, a determination particularly harmful where the local priests and nuns are the sole or major source of education and counselling, and socio-politically powerful as well.

When people are kept ignorant, thus closing off their options, hand-waving about their "accountability" is misguided and callous. I remarked in the OP that the rich, educated, and sophisticated of the West seem to find it easy to minimize the ways in which millions of others are kept poor, uneducated, and naive.

The priests and nuns that are the sole or major source of education and counseling also promote other RCC directives regarding monogamy, sexual responsibility and abstinence which are consistent with the Pope’s position on contraception.

These emissaries also provide many other practical services (consequences of actions and “better” options) to the poor and uneducated that they would otherwise never have ever been exposed to.

We may disagree on what we consider "better", but there is consistency with the RCC position.

In short, I don’t hold the Pope responsible for suffering that occurs regarding the issue of contraception because the rest of the message regarding sexual responsibility is also taught consistently with the original position.

Personally, I provide my financial support to UNICEF which (as you may know) supports responsible contraception and provides the poor and uneducated with material and resources to become informed of other options.

Just as I would disagree with a Fundamentalist that UNICEF causes the malicious murder of millions of human lives in the form of unborn fetuses with this practice/position, I also disagree with you that the Pope causes harm to human lives by the RCC practice/position.

It gets no more simple than that.

Nobody has said that the problem is who JPII disagreed with, so it's hard to see the relevance of this remark. The problem was the harm he did -- to men, women and children -- by refusing to regard women's rights as human rights.

That is why I said “As an aside”, Clutch.

That said, the relevance of my remark is that the Pope did not “harm” men, women and children by promoting consistent options and promoting health and educational benefits from a RCC point of view.

You may disagree with abstinence or monogamy as viable options, but it is consistent with beneficial behavior and not harmful behavior.

The reasoning here is unrecoverable. Do you think Stalin wasn't mourned by millions? This man is taken as God's representative on Earth. He is regarded as a father in way that goes well beyond the metaphorical; he was genuinely trusted to be a good father by tens of millions. Of course they mourn him. Does this mitigate or exacerbate any respects in which he did not act in ways that respected their rights and well-being?

The glaring difference is that Stalin directly ordered the killing of millions and advanced an ideology that promoted no other beneficial option. Fear was all that was represented.

You have not shown proof that the Pope acted in ways that did not respect the rights and well-being of others.

Further comparison between the Pope and Stalin is beyond rational discussion in my view.

The casual weighing, moreover, of "feelings of comfort" against the misery of people's lives and deaths is hard to fathom. I don't underrate the former. But the two rather don't compare.

That is because misery exists regardless of the Pope and that feelings of comfort existed for some because of him.

To me that is important because I am not only an atheist I am a Humanist.

And with argument, this claim might even be made reasonable. I have no deeply vested interest in seeing JPII at the top of the list in any case; I'd just like to see a discussion of the harm he did -- one that takes the suffering of the relevant people seriously.

Sorry for the interruption then, I must have misunderstood the thread title and OP.