The late Pope John Paul II (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005) who died two years ago next month on April 2, 2005 at his private quarters inside the Vatican ("Pope John Paul II, March 10, 2007), after having suffered a long and steady, visibly apparent decline in decline in health for well over a decade before his death ("Pope John Paul II"), was the 264th Pope to be the elected head of the Roman Catholic Church (Kwitny, 1997). The Pope was 84 years old when he died, and would have turned 85 in a few weeks.
             Before his death and the subsequent election of his successor, the current, German-born Pope Benedict XVI [formerly Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, who was at the time of his predecessor's death Dean of the College of Cardinals, and conducted the Mass of Requiem at the late Pope's funeral on April 8, 2007 ("Funeral of Pope John Paul II," March 9, 2007)], John Paul II, the first non-Italian Pope in 500 years since Adrian VI of Holland (Szulc, 1995) led his Church with astounding vigor, energy, magnetism, and what can only be called (especially in this media age) flair – holding rapt not just Catholics everywhere, but others of all faiths, backgrounds, and ages (Weigel, 2001). Yet the public pronouncements and voluminous theological writings of John Paul II; and their ecumenical messages continually reinforced longstanding opposition to abortion; birth control; and euthanasia (Bernstein and Politi, 1996; Kwitny, 1997; Weigel, 2001)] and were at core extremely conservative.
             The Papacy of John Paul II lasted for 26 years - longer than that of any other Pope in recorded history except for Pius IX who was Pope for 31 years.
             John Paul II clearly was not liberal in his thinking; but he was a humanist of deep moral faith with the courage of his convictions. In the 1980's as one of the world's two most visible (the other was Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland's Solida...