In the short term, his legacy will be that the celebrity adoration and worship of him will completely eclipse the realities the Catholic church is facing in it's homelands--Europe and North America, where Catholicism has seen a very rapid decline in the past 50 years.

From yesterday's LA Times:

"ROME — Only a few miles from the throngs that pressed into St. Peter's Square to bid farewell to Pope John Paul II, a soaring Baroque-style basilica echoed with emptiness.

Inside, 20 of the faithful were sequestered in a side chapel for the noon Mass, while Father Virgilio Missori, 84, sat alone near a confessional booth awaiting penitents who did not come.

In many ways, the quiet scene day in and day out at the 17th century Basilica of Sts. Ambrose and Charles on the Corso is far more representative of the state of the Roman Catholic Church today than the one in St. Peter's Square, where an estimated 2 million pilgrims paid homage to John Paul in what was arguably the world's largest funeral.

For all the glory of its churches and its history as the preeminent keeper and promulgator of the Christian faith, the Roman Catholic Church is in retreat in much of the developed West that used to be called Christendom.

Regular attendance at Mass is on a downward spiral in many predominantly Catholic countries, especially in the church's European heartland. It is much the same story in the United States."