No, no, Mick, I was not remotely adopting a mocking tone (and of course we disagree fruitfully when we do). I cannot fathom it. It is a kind of disconnect. I was in Chartres about a month ago, and there were young French people parading and gathering who were going to Toronto, and when they found out I came from Toronto, we sat down and talked, and they were thrilled to be travelling and going to meet lots of other young people, and as soon as I asked them about His Holiness they froze, and none of them could say anything about him except that he was "wonderful". I asked them what they thought about any of his social policies, about stifling dissent, women's rights, about the future of the church, and they shrugged their shoulders in what I can only call embarassment. But "he was wonderful". I suppose that the idea must be that you ought to be able to separate the social and the spiritual, which may be true if you are an individual, but not if you are the head of a church which is so intertwined with social policy all over the world -- they have status at the UN -- and besides, if that is what one should do, separate them -- then why does the Pope not separate them himself? He has exhibited on countless occasions little tolerance for dissent, for other people's spiritual journeys within the church. He should have retired into prayer and his personal journey many, many years ago.

Tangerine togas? Shriners are usually in red fezes. Hare Krishnas also scare me, not to mention Buddhists who think the Dalai Lama is never wrong.

I think John Paul was a great Polish patriot and anticommunist. Unfortunately, the long years fighting the monolithic state led him to become what he beheld.

yours, Peter T.