The Pope: Do not speak ill of the dead and political responsibility

Many people who are normally very critical of the Catholic Church, due to Pope’s death, refrain from criticizing it. They are either convinced by the, at times very partial, media shower of pro-Pope propaganda or they simply find it tasteless to make any negative comments at this point, led by the “do not speak ill of the dead” dictum. We decided to publish some critical comments about the pope and the global role of the Catholic Church (see 1, 2 and 3).

Concerning this issue, Jonathan Steele, author of one of the three articles quoted in this blog entry says,
The deaths of the powerful elicit extravagant claims, and many of the tributes to the man being buried in Rome today have been little short of grotesque. Dumbing-down comes over obituary writers, and in their eagerness to define a clear legacy they often produce simplifications that take no account of how the world and people change. (as cited by Arthur Dickenson, esq.)