Criticism of Pope John Paul II

[14] John Paul II was criticised for his support of the Opus Dei prelature and the 2002 canonisation of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, whom he called the saint of ordinary life.

Campaigners accuse John Paul II more generally of putting the interests of the Catholic Church above all and turning a blind eye to child sex abuse allegations.

[21][2] John Paul II's defense of teachings of the Catholic Church regarding gender roles, sexuality, euthanasia, artificial contraception and abortion came under criticism.

He was also accused by these critics for allowing and appointing liberal bishops in their sees and thus silently promoting Modernism, which was firmly condemned as the "synthesis of all heresies" by his predecessor Pope Pius X.

In 1988, the controversial traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X (1970), was excommunicated under John Paul II because of the unapproved ordination of four bishops, which was called by the Holy See a "schismatic act".

The World Day of Prayer for Peace,[24] with a meeting in Assisi, Italy, in 1986, in which the Pope prayed only with the Christians,[25] was heavily criticised as giving the impression that syncretism and indifferentism were openly embraced by the Papal Magisterium.

[30] However, Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said "We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.

[32] Critics have also claimed that large families are caused by lack of contraception and exacerbate Third World poverty and problems such as street children in South America.

The frequency of his trips, it was said, not only undermined the "specialness" of papal visits, but took him away from important business at the Vatican and allowed the Church, administratively speaking, to drift and rot within.