laud you for
most of the other moral systems detecting
And for anything true and holy in them not
rejecting –
Those Asian Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist
religions,
And Australian hundreds-of-centuries-old
native traditions.
I commend you on admitting your predecessors
misapprehended
The earth’s form and position for which
Galileo contended.
To deny the roundness and movement of the
globe, in error
The Inquisition persecuted the physicist,
inflicted terror!
I praise you for acknowledging that, without
lenience,
In order to liberate Jerusalem from Islamic
obedience,
They fostered crusades in the European
Catholics’ name;
But they had recourse to violence – unworthy
of fame!
I respect you for apologizing, to many a
Latin nation,
For Spanish past roles in South-America
Evangelization.
Delegated by the Church, Spain took advantage
of the situation
To practice cruelly massacre, tyranny, and
exploitation!
I admire you for testifying your anterior
ones’ lack of sanity
While love of one another is the Bible’s
thesis of humanity.
They considered black-skinned race as of
lowest grade;
And they tolerated, and even encouraged,
slave trade!
I sympathize with your feeling about World
War II a sharp pain:
The Vatican’s cooperation with the Nazis – a
dark stain!
I acclaim your recognition of the processes
of Evolution:
Such reasoning beyond Creation is quite a
revolution!
I extol you rectifying the doctrine of the
Virgin Mary:
Whether body and soul into heavenly glory it
does vary.
To inherit sin – before that conception – she
was bound;
To exclude her from natural death, there is
no ground.
I comprehend your part in seeking Poland’s
regime to replace:
Because you put the Poles first and above any
other race.
I agree with you that though you tell people
not to fear,
You still must use bulletproof protection in
public to appear.
I love your getting prepared for the century
twenty-first:
All predictions of the near end only mean a
frenzy burst!
I’m sorry for you yielding to the Vietnamese
protestation
Of their own country’s prelacy against your
ordination!
I thank you for teaching Christians to repent
of their sin
Committed in the past by certain Pontiffs and
their kin.
Such lucidity, justice, and courage, of a man
capable,
Lets me believe that you, the Pope, is not
mistakable!
