Is the Pope a Murderer? Wills Says "Sure"

Gary Wills is known for many things. Some consider him an authority on things Catholic. Others, however--and many of them--do not. I am one of the "others" in this regard.

On Tuesday, March 14, he was interviewed on Boston's NPR station.

In the interview, he is critical of just about everything the Catholic Church and the Christian Tradition represent. Some of his complaints were mentioned today by Dennis. In the interview, Wills goes on to blame the pope for the many deaths resulting from AIDS around the world. Huh? Yep. You got that right. Pope Benedict XVI, according to the mindset of Gary Wills, is "responsible for murder."

At about 18:14 of the interview, he says the following (which was transcribed by Catholic author and blogger Amy Welborn and can be found here):

Wills: There is..a message of life and love in the New Testament. Little of that comes out of Rome now. People are dying of AIDS all around the world now especially in places like Africa and Indonesia now, …when the Pope refuses to allow people to have contraception, he’s killing them. He’s responsible for murder. This is hardly a gospel of life and love.

Interviewer: You say that Pope Benedict is responsible for murder?

Wills: Sure, sure. More people are more resentful and hateful toward the Catholic Church because of that than because of the sexual molestation problem…sexual molesters are terrible it’s..you know here in Boston, but for the most part, not always, but for the most part they didn’t kill people. This is killing people on a grand scale, and it’s a horrendous scandal, much greater than any sexual molestation scandal.

Aside from Amy's take on this, which I suggest you read by clicking the link above, it troubles me that so many still regard Wills as an accurate or worthy commentator on Church affairs ... and ... moreover, that my favorite political afternoon radio host Hugh even quoted him as an authority on Church issues in his (Hugh's) book, In, But Not Of. Hugh needs to come back from his sabbatical, if not at least rely on more respectable and truth-telling commentators, which Gary Wills is not.

Pope Benedict XVI a murderer? I think not. Wake up, Wills. Your dream world is not reality and wishing it were does not make it so, however much NPR and the New York Times Book Review lets you think so.