Here is an article from David Dolan postmarked April 6 dealing with Pope
John Paul II and the Catholic Church. While a copyright notice is given, we
were unable to relocate the link to the Website where it appeared. Other
pieces by David Dolan have been presented here without copyright
due to Mr. Dolan's interest in dispersal of this writings.

Beware that he has some sharp words concerning the Catholic
Church. We advise our readers to consider what is said in the
context of a reporter who lives daily life in the Middle East.
This then is an Opinion piece. It gives a perspective
that our readers may find interesting.

Regards,
Director of WindowView

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PERSONAL NOTE FROM DAVID DOLAN -

Below is my latest contribution to the World Net Daily website,
published there today. I write about the March 2000 visit of the late
Pope John Paul II to Israel, and how that impacted the small Jewish
state. I also share some of my personal observations about the Catholic
faith, having been brought up in it as a youth.

I have just this moment received word that my aunt, a Poor Clare nun, is
nearing death’s door in Spokane, Washington. To me, she embodied what is
best about the Catholic Church, living a life of simplicity and prayer
inspired by St. Francis and Clare. If you will, please pray that Sister
Mary Rita will have a peaceful exit from this life as she prepares to
meet her Lord.

David Dolan

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Pope John Paul II electrified the Holy Land

Posted: April 6, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

As I gaze out my window over the green Hinnon Valley toward the
Christian Quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City, I can clearly see the
yellow and white Vatican flag flying at half mast over several prominent
Roman Catholic buildings. The lowered flags gently flutter in the cool
early April breeze as I recall the visit of Pope John Paul II, which
electrified this biblical city five years ago.

The Polish-born pontiff publicly professed that he considered his Holy
Land pilgrimage the spiritual highlight of his long and impressive life.
That was quite a revelation given that he toured every continent and
dozens of nations during the 317 months that he presided over his
international church. Yet he apparently realized that while there are
nearly 200 sovereign countries on Earth – a good portion of them more
verdant than Israel, better endowed with natural resources, containing
far more rivers and lakes, significantly larger in landmass, etc. –
there is still only one Promised Land.

Reporting for CBS radio news and other media outlets in March 2000, I
spent quite a few hours discussing Catholic theology and practice with
some of my visiting journalist colleagues. We especially focused on the
most relevant question: How was the pope generally perceived in the
world's only Jewish state? I was asked about this not because I was an
expert on the Roman church, but because my staunchly Catholic upbringing
– followed by two decades living in Israel – afforded me some extra
insight on the topic.

While hopefully helping them to better report the compelling story
before us, I made clear to my colleagues that I was no longer a
professing member of John Paul's worldwide flock. I told them this was
not because I failed to appreciate the positive things that flowed from
my Catholic past, but because I came to a realization in my early adult
years that my Holy Father was God alone. After that, I could not in good
conscience address anyone on Earth by that hallowed title, whatever his
position or merits.

Neither could I petition the Lord's humble Jewish mother in prayer, let
alone consider her the "Queen of Heaven." John Paul proclaimed that the
"Mother of God" – in her Polish incarnation as the Black Madonna, whose
picture hangs in a church in his native land – had spared his life when
an assassin's bullets struck him in 1981. But I could find absolutely no
biblical basis for that colorful contention, not to mention for the very
position of temporal power that the Vatican's centuries-old flag, throne
room and crown proudly proclaim.

Still, I deeply appreciated the apparent fact that as popes go, John
Paul was a breath of fresh air. He had obviously played a major role in
the downfall of communism's oppressive rule over millions of people in
Eastern Europe, to his everlasting credit. He also staunchly defended
several biblically-based Catholic doctrines (many are culled directly
from holy writ) in the face of a virtual flood of contrary opinions and
actions.

Regarding the Jews, he bravely took the Second Vatican Council's
"correction" of earlier anti-Jewish doctrines a step or three further.
Seemingly recognizing that the Council's renunciation of "replacement
theology" – which presumes that Christians have completely replaced the
Jews as God's chosen covenant people – had not gone far enough, or at
least not filtered down to the average Catholic in the pews or their
parish priest, John Paul took the bull by the horns. No Israeli will
forget that he was the first pontiff to address the Jewish people as
"our elder brothers" and even more significantly, as "the people of the
Covenant."

Yet it will not be his theology, either biblically accurate or
questionable, or his exalted earthly position that will remain foremost
in the hearts and minds of the Israeli public. It was the literal steps
that the contemporary world's most famous spiritual leader took here in
their ancient and modern homeland that will long echo the loudest.

With Israeli television broadcasting live, the frail John Paul – his
shoulders bent forward due to the physical ravages of Parkinson's
disease – walked slowly and solemnly to the Temple Mount's sacred
Western Wall. There, he recited a short prayer before gingerly placing
an historic, carefully crafted printed prayer into one of its ancient
crevices. It read, "God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his
descendants to bring Your name to the nations ... We are deeply saddened
by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these
children of yours to suffer and, asking Your forgiveness, we wish to
commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant."

The other memorable step was one that the Roman Catholic pontiff was not
at all scheduled to make. As an Israeli choir sang the moving Hebrew
song "Eli, Eli" ("My God, My God," which always brings to my mind the
harrowing cry of Jesus on his Roman cross nearly 2,000 years ago in this
city), John Paul sat silently in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial
museum. Next to him stood then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, whose maternal
grandparents perished in the Treblinka death camp. Some 50 invited
Holocaust survivors were also in the large hall, including 13 from Karol
Vojtyla's hometown, Wadowice, Poland.

When the aging Catholic leader spotted one woman whom he apparently
recognized, he broke all protocol by walking over and tenderly greeting
her, instead of letting her ceremonially come to him as planned. That
spontaneous televised gesture, which brought tears to many Israeli eyes,
spoke volumes more than the words uttered by John Paul that day,
expressing deep sorrow and regret for centuries of church-related
anti-Semitism.

In fact, such compassion and humility should have been the hallmark of
all the men who have ruled from Vatican City, given that they claim to
be the direct successors of one of the Lord's most trusted Jewish
cohorts, the Apostle Peter. If that had actually been the case, Hitler's
mass slaughter would probably not have taken place at all in "Christian
Europe," and there would be no Holocaust museum in Jerusalem today.

For the sake of everyone on Earth in these troubled times, we can only
hope and pray that the next "Vicar of Christ" will be someone of equal
or surpassing earnestness and humility, despite the earthly power and
pomp still dominating the Vatican in Rome.

David Dolan,
JERUSALEM