Long Live the Pope!

On D. Bettenelli's site (the guy makes my skin crawl) he has a pretty interesting and useful summary of what happens if the Pope dies.

Of particular interest/amusement was this comment:

First, I think the Pope is amazingly strong and will probably get better and be with us a few more years.

But, I just had a passing thought. If he is seriously ill and actually dying, I’d guess that he’ll die on Good Friday.

Don’t mean to be morbid or even remotely call this a prediction --- it’s just something that ocurred to me.

I pray he recovers soon

I found it amusing because on Brown eye blog yesterday I saw the following post:

i suspect the end may not be imminent, but near. and on catholic radio and ewtn, everyone is praying that the pope get well "so that he can lead us for many years to come." frankly, i find that to be a ridiculous statement. JPII is old. he's not been in a good health for quite some time. he barely looks like he's functioning. how many more years can he lead us???? can we be realistic here? please, fellow catholics, please. can we just be real for two minutes?

Clearly, the end is near, very near for His Holiness and there is absolutely nothing wrong in acknowledging that he just may pass away any day now. I think the whole pro-life thing makes people want wish people indefinite extension of life and never look for them to die, because that would be wishing they die.

Pope John Paul II has served his generation and his Church well and his time has come. Death is not a bad or evil thing. The man has been excruciatingly lonely for decades now, death would be a wonderful thing for him.

It's okay folks, we can wish him a happy death. He's earned it.