Choice words from the priest who runs my Latin class.

The priest from my Latin class said about JPII that he could never understand why people wanted to beatify him right away, and added, "He was a very hard and wicked man."

He said that everyone in Rome warned him about getting involved with Maciel, but he wanted the Legionnaires and Opus to be the shocktroops of his revived church, and had these grandiose plans that they would flood into former communist countries and revive the church.

"Have you seen the church in Poland?", the priest asked. "It is weaker than it was under communism." He said that communism kept the drugs and the pornography out, but when the Poles threw off communism, many chose to throw out the church as well... He said he first got to know of Wotyla (the future jpii) because every other month he was sending him letters from Paul VI telling him not to go around calling communism the spawn of Satan or what have you from the altar every Sunday.

"He really destroyed the ostpolitik of Paul VI," the priest said. "Paul VI was smart, he knew that communism wouldn't last and so he wasn't looking to make too many enemies, and was already planning for the day when it wouldn't be around."

He also made another backhanded comparison to jpii when he was reminiscing about translating some document for Paul VI that was talking about how dioceses sent their best people to seminaries for the priesthood, and how he used this word that is attested classically and looks like the word for "oaks" but means "best men, best part", and after Paul VI read through the document, he wrote back in "this small, delicate hand - kind of French-like, you know, he was all French-y, and philosophical", and the only marking was a question mark by that word, so he wrote up the classical attestations for the word and sent it back along with a list of synonyms (e.g. "electi", "selecti"), and Paul VI wrote back, and had written "cosi!" by the list of synonyms.

"It wasn't that way with John Paul II at all," he was like, after the story. "No," he said, "He wasn't at all philosophical."

(Isn't jpii known for his theological writings, too? - the Latin of which the priest said was "serviceable".)

Then, he said that for the first encyclical, which was like 148pp. and very repetitious for no good reason, he wrote back with suggestions for editing like he always had, and jpii sent it back right away with a note just saying (I think - I should check the Vulgate) "quod scripsi, scripsi" ('what I have written, I have written') - the line that Pilate says in the Gospel of John when 'the Jews' complain that the sign above the cross that is supposed to record Christ's crime says "King of the Jews", and not "This man said, 'I am King of the Jews.'"

(That part of the gospel is a famous unintended proclamation of Christ, in line with other such occurrences throughout the gospel - it's a big, unique theme of John.)

"That was that," he said, and when I asked him more about jpii, he said that he only really talked to him for 20 minutes for all the 27-some odd years he worked for him.

He also said he killed Vatican II (and this conversation was in front of the entire class, though I strike it up when the people I suspect who are conservative are gone on break, the break between the 1st and 2nd sessions is the best time).

"Where have all the flowers gone?", he asked, and then was like, "Or, rather, I should say, 'Quo abierunt flores?'".

...really, the whole conversation reminded me of that one conversation I had with my mom where she said she had never paid attention to jpii, but had just always gotten this authoritarian vibe off of him...