Ingenious Big Mick. You don't like what the pope does, yet revere him for his values. Is it him that's two-faced, or you? And instead of basking in what he says about child abuse, why not take a look at what he's actually done about it?

Wojtyla may have done for the so-called communism of eastern Europe, but all popes love totalitarianism in all its other forms. From Pius IX onwards they could not have been more clear in their horror of democracy.

Maybe SharonA is too imbued with the evils of "communism" to notice that some of the countries now "liberated" (Russia, Ukraine, the former East Germany; if not Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia) have a higher proportion of discontented people now than they did before.

It was at least amusing to note the palpable dismay in the Vatican as John-Paul II's obsessive horror of soviet communism went as far as an axis with Israel! So much for Pacelli's pact with Hitler!

What blatant and needless hypocrisy, by the way, for Wojtyla to take the name John-Paul. His humble predecessor took that unique course out of respect for both Paul VI and John XXIII. Wojtyla has devoted his papacy to unravelling all John John XXIII's progress towards a united Christian church. Or he at least allowed his Rotweiler, Joseph Ratzinger (head of the inquisition) a free hand.

And if SharonA likes his McCarthyite credentials, she will have warmed also to his capitalist credentials, as seen for instance in his protecting crooks like Bishop Marcinkus from the long arm of the law.