My comment on the article […] abuse scandal tarnishes John Paul II’s sainthood by Philip Willan in The Times, 16 November 2020. I posted the text around 1 am. It was held until late morning when it was finally allowed to appear. Top picture, full text of the comment. There are also other problems with … Read more
My comment on the article Pope Francis ‘naive’ in deal with China to name bishops by Tom Kington and Didi Tang in The Times, 19 September 2020. Polish translation: Czerwona gwiazda nad Watykanem. This is nothing new in the Vatican. Earlier popes appeased Communists in Eastern Europe in a similar way. It was done under … Read more
My comment on LGBT protest upstages Duda’s swearing-in as Polish president by Oliver Moody in The Times, 6 August 2020. My report from Poland on that day would be completely different. I would first note that the day before, on August 5, the Polsat News tv channel broadcast an advertisement for a model kit of … Read more
My comment on the article The Pope is Beijing’s unlikely admirer by Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times, 26 July 2020. 4 August 2020 I would like to take issue with a couple of items in this article. the pre-eminent Catholic commentator George Weigel On May 14, 2020 The Wall Street Journal published a false … Read more
Comment on The Times’ article Putin and Stalin exalted beside angels in Russia’s ‘pagan temple’ by Marc Bennetts in Moscow The appearance of Stalin on the wall of an Orthodox church seems surprising at first. However, if we reflect a little, we will see that it is far from being an isolated incident. The Communist … Read more
Comment on the article Virtual Vatican: Video game that lets you play Pope by Tom Kington in The Times, April 23, 2020. Funny, that game makers haven’t come up with a pre-1990 ‘East-European democratic opposition to communism’ simulation and ‘East-European democracy post-1990’ simulation. I understand that games of this kind might be accidentally revealing too … Read more
Book review. Comments on The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan and Thatcher and the End of the Cold War by Archie Brown review by Dominic Sandbrook, March 22 2020. Ah, the Clueless and the Mythmakers, in other words Russian and East European Centre, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. John Paul II was Communist collaborator. John … Read more
Another comment following Niall Ferguson’s article in The Sunday Times. One reader asked me, Ulysses9: Interesting and challenging views in your comment. Do you have a reference or evidence for the Pope refusing to pray for the Polish victims of NKVD massacres? My response: If I remember correctly, the information about the reluctance of John … Read more
My second comment on Niall Ferguson’s article Aftermath: the fall of the Berlin Wall — and its lesson for China 30 years on in The Sunday Times. Pope John Paul II, whom the author mentions, did not oppose Communists. He collaborated with them. He celebrated the 26 anniversary of his pontificate in October 2004 with … Read more
My second comment following the article Benefits boom pushes Polish populists to victory by Oliver Moody in The Times, 14 October 2019. Cardinal Wojtyla wouldn’t have advanced to the top of the church hierarchy without Communist support. The church in Poland quickly lost its independence after WWII. The Communist control was total. In October 2004, the … Read more