Best analysis of JP2's papacy to appear this week...

[Smarmie Doofus]

was by Catholic scholar and historian Thomas Cahill on NY TIMES op-ed on 4-5-05. It's available on line in it's entirety. Some enterprising soul might post it here ( I'm enterprising enough but have no idea how to do it), assuming it hasn't been posted already.

Gives JP his ( modest) due... but flinches not at detailing his many deficiencies. Here's a taste. He's describing how JP's insistence on theological orthodoxy effected the clerical ranks in the USA:

"...it is nearly impossible to find men who subscribe wholeheartedly to this (JP's) entire catalogue of certitudes; as a result, the ranks of the episcopate are filled with mindless sycophants and intellectual incompetents. The good priests have been passed over; and not a few, in their growing frustration as the pontificate of John Paul II stretched on, left the priesthood to seek fulfillment elsewhere."

True, in my view, and largely overlooked in post mortems. There's much more.