Enlightened Dalai Lama & Inflexible JPII

I love this. The Philosodude is taking umbrage at the way the progressives like to call everything about John Paul the Great into question, while giving the Dalai Lama a pass on the same issues (abortion, celibacy, obedience).

This means no disrespect to the Dalai Lama – why would I disrespect him? I like him a lot! “I am just a monk,” he says – just as JPII would always say, “I am a priest, first.”

But I’ve said it before and will say it again, it’s a curious and amusing irony that the two men could say the same thing, and the press would ooh and aah over one guy and frown and sniff at the other.

Philosodude says it better than I can:

Well, the AP took a poll, and everybody pretty much agrees the Catholic Church better get with the program in electing their next pope.

[…]

Just a thought experiment for anti-Papists, “recovering” Catholics, progressive thinkers, and AP poll participants. I don’t think many people would presume to tell the Dalai Lama what to think and believe. And when he passes on, I don’t think even Bill Clinton will have the narcissistic temerity to compare himself to the Dalai Lama, and say he leaves a “mixed legacy.”

There is a movie I like called Keeping the Faith. It’s a cute little comedy about two boys one Jewish, one Catholic, who grow up to be a rabbi and a priest. At one point a girl they have grown up with asks the priest about his celibacy, really questions him, and after finally answering her to her satisfaction, he muses, “how come the Buddhists never have to answer this question?”

Indeed.