With the extraordinary scenes in Rome I'm a bit wary of the value of adding my two cents but I though I'd add a few thoughts because I've always been conflicted in my attitude toward the Pope and recent events have brought these conflicts into sharp focus. He always seemed to me to be a man of great contrasts. On one hand he was an authoritarian conservative while on the other a steadfast supporter of peace and human rights who condemned all the invasions of Iraq as immoral, who opposed the death penalty everywhere and believed that that after the fall of communism that capitalism was the world's greatest menace. He was a populist with the common touch but also a formidable intellectual and philosopher, a practical man and also a mystic with a devotion to St John of the Crossand a dark apocalyptic vision of the world, a vision which stunned the curia during his 1976 Vatican lenten retreat lecture series, a lecture series which is believed to have marked him for the Papacy. He was praised for his championing of freedom but believed that we are only free in order to pursue truth ( and for truth read God as revealed by the Catholic Church) and that freedom without virtue is a new form of slavery. Did his ideas actually make an impact or did people just take what they want to hear? Conservatives like his conservative values but ignore his oposition to war, the death penalty and free market capitalism wheras the more liberal minded admire his stance on these things but disagree with his more conservative positions. I wonder was there really a dichotomy in his thinking or was he thoroughly consistant but we can't beyond our preconceived notions? I'm not sure but it's worth thinking about.

Just two links one an insightful article about John Paul II's faith and the other Panoramas from St Peter's Square