He and I aren't Catholics, (we're both Lutherans) so that probably doesn't strike us as insensitive to the degree that it strikes others. But I'm a bastard in that I'm perfectly willing to forward other peoples' insensitivity to the world.
That fails as an apology. I'm sorry.
Nobody needs to come here to find out that Pope John Paul II was one of the great... To heck with that, he was the greatest figure of the 20th century.
Two Polacks walk up to the Pearly Gates
Lech Walensa and Karol Wojtyla.
Before St. Peter can say anything, a blinding light extends a hand through the gates saying, "Well done! My good and faithful servants!"
He, Walensa, Reagan, Thatcher and Vaclav Havel were the main characters who brought down the Soviet Union. Alexander Solzhenitsyn should be in that crowd too.
I say the Pope was the greatest of these people because of the length of his tenure at the very least, but also because I tend to agree with his social agenda (and that the proper forum for it is the realm of religion--I'm offended that his opponents try to politicize the Church, but I'm happy to accept great religious thinkers' opinions in political debate - legislative debate is all about which morals should be legislated).
I want to say God Bless him, as the strongest kind thing I can say, but he can't be more blessed than he is now being greated by our Father in Heaven.
God bless the works he's left us here.
