With his enemic response to the sexual abuse scandals, his shortsighted and in the final analysis coldhearted support of Saddam's regime, and now this simpleminded anti-capitalist stance with regard to the globalization of markets, the Pope has shown in the last two years that a great figure in history can lose the qualities that made him great and outstay his usefulness on the world stage.
It almost seems that in his dotage, with his mental faculites greatly dulled, the Pope has come under the influence of some of the blacker elements in the Curia.