Pope John Paul II

After watching all of the "Saints Alive" presentations in class, I have learned and gained a better knowledge of several different saints that I did not know much about. One saint that had a great impact on me was Pope John Paul II. His life interested me greatly because of the countless ways that he changed the Catholic Church for the better. I really loved how he improved the Catholic Church's relations with other religions such as Islam and Judaism. This shows that he truly cared about peace with our fellow brothers and sisters and that there should be no conflict between these very different religions. Another thing that I really enjoyed learning about Pope John Paul II was that he traveled to over 100 countries during his time. He made a great effort and was successful in enforcing universal holiness. Pope John Paul II often talked about the importance of women and family. He firmly believed that the strong relationship between the family was the future of humanity. I also agree with his thoughts about this because a strong family will always stick together even through the toughest of situations in our world today. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Pope John Paul II and his incredible changes to the Catholic Church. He has greatly influenced me and my life for the better.

Stop Kony

After watching the "Stop Kony" video, I was truly inspired to help the cause and make Kony famous for the right reason. It was really eye opening to see the conditions that children live in in other countries. We have known about issues like these for years, but never made a change to actually stop them. I have spoken to a few people about the Kony video and I have noticed that some people do not support the cause in making Kony famous. They believe that there are problems just as bad as this in America and we have done little to solve them here, let alone in Uganda. However, I believe that this Kony video is very eye opening and will make the people around our country come together. Not only will this make our country come together under this circumstance, but I strongly believe that this will better help our country unite to solve other nation and worldly causes. On April 20, 2012, I hope Philadelphia, along with all the other cities in our nation, will cover the streets and buildings with endless amounts of "Stop Kony" posters. I hope that the government will make a large effort to stop Kony once and for all. These poor children are being abducted and forced to kill their own families. They are completely defenseless. As a country, if a tragedy like this were to occur in our country, our government would want other countries to help stop this terrible man as well. The Stop Kony foundation is not asking for money, they are just asking that we share the news of Kony and make him famous. We need to make him famous so more people know about him and will put a great effort into stopping this terrible man. Bandwagons are sometimes not a very good thing in society, but the entire point of this cause is for more and more people to join the "Stop Kony" bandwagon in order to raise awareness about horrific crimes Joseph Kony is committing. In the end, I hope that our nation will unite together and our government will send out troops with the technology to stop Joseph Kony.