Karol Wojtyla, better known as John Paul II, was Pope for 26 years, a time in which he was a key figure in pushing the anti-communist attacks on a world scale.

The designation of Wojtyla as Pope broke the hegemony that the Italian mafia had maintained over the Vatican for 400 years. Behind his selection was the most recalcitrant right wing of the Catholic Church, the Opus Dei, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA.

John Paul II became the tool utilised by U.S. imperialism to open the doors of Eastern Europe to international capital, taking advantage of the weakness and decay of the revisionist regimes of the Soviet bloc to promote anti-communism. Thus in Poland, through Lech Walesa, he promoted the creation of the union ‘Solidarity’ that played a transcendent role in the fall of the revisionist regime, promoting an anti-communist atmosphere. With the fall of the Polish government, the pro-imperialist media sold the idea to the world that the Pope had defeated socialism.

Wojtyla made several international voyages eager to interfere in the internal policies of countries with social conflicts as well as to improve the deteriorated image of the church. In 1985 the Pope came to Ecuador; during his visit he did not say anything about the violations of human rights by the regime of then-president Leon Febres Cordero. In general John Paul II accepted and ‘blessed’ reactionary governments throughout the world.

The discourse of the Pope was always full of anti-communist content; therefore the extreme right wing praised him as a defender of human rights and concerned about the poor, which was far from reality. An example was his treatment of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Rosario (who was later murdered). When he was in Rome he had an interview with the then resplendent Pope, who would not even stop to look at the reports, photographs and copies of letters sent by the archbishop of San Salvador in his desperate request for help to do something about the massacre of the Salvadorian people (70 thousand people killed at the hands of the army, National Guard and death squads). On that occasion the Pope reminded Romero that his role as archbishop was to maintain ‘good relations’ with the government and not to be concerned about what happens with the people.

In his interventions John Paul II promoted backward, reactionary concepts, among them male chauvinism. He was opposed to the use of condoms and the granting of divorce, among others.

The death of the Pope has renewed the fight among the groups that are interested in controlling the Vatican. Opus Dei is one of them, the group that was responsible for the death of the predecessor of Wojtyla, Pope John Paul I, who lasted a very short time at the head of the Catholic Church. Remember that, when great economic and political interests are at stake within it, assassination is an available resource.

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