I am reproducing The Pope’s Last Will and Testament. because the news services and most sites are reproducing a truncated, and incomplete, version of what is after all, a historical document.
What’s striking about it is the rather chaotic, rambling nature of the document, begun in 1979 and more or less finished in the year 2000. It seems more like a diary than a formal will.
The full text of the will was sent out in an email alert by Inside the Vatican – Monthly Roman Catholic Magazine, although oddly enough, it’s not reproduced in the website itself. It turns out the every efficient The Pope Blog has undertaken its own translation, which seems better-organized than the one I’ve posted.
Update, 12:39 p.m. Manila time: President Arroyo is on CNN saying the Pope advised her to break with President Estrada; and rather (unseemly, I might add), seems to be preening over the pope’s being pleased the country is led by a “pious” person. I don’t doubt the President’s personal faith, but I don’t like the tone of her interview with CNN: after showing a tiny bit of independence of the Church on birth control, she’s now saying she’s proud to adhere to, and implement, Church teaching on contraception….
