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He kept the public relations and "literary" parts of it, and turned into the most prolific writer and dedicated traveler of any pope. But somehow I think those are the least of the duties of the Keeper of the Keys.

LOL. The 'fun' parts of the job. Truth is, I don't think this Pope has the temperment of a great administrator. That's just my impression. He does love man, though. And probably sees that as the defining element of Catholicsm. Sees himself as the Vicar of Christ, loving Man with the same intensity, as the highest Papal good.

He doesn't seem to be feared at all by the organization's practice setting heirarchy.

There was an article posted here a few weeks ago, by someone who seemed to be very fond of him, who stated that JPII was not fond of ordinary governance. Well, who is? It is a dirty job, but it has to be done. Even a great administrator will be mocked and disobeyed, but when that head administrator embraces the role with half a heart, the stage has been set for extraordinary confusion.

And as my Priest said in Sunday's Sermon, confusion is Satan's biggest ally.

Yes, he appears not to have enjoyed the governance part of the job. And, as Desdemona pointed out, it seemed that he waited for attrition to take care of the problems.

However, in the 25 years or so that it has taken (and alas, with the Mahonys and Skylsteds of this world still around and in power, it's not over yet), the Church has been seriously damaged, and I attribute much of that to the hands-off attitude of this pope. Perhaps he was afraid of meeting the fate of JPI, which was probably a valid concern.

But when one considers all of the faith (and even lives) lost during this period because of the failure to remove heterodox bishops, priests and heads of religious orders, defend orthodox doctrine and practice with something other than ambiguous words, and enforce Catholic support for Catholic policies in the public arena, I think he's going to have a lot to answer for. Obviously, it's up to God to judge and I'm sure there are things I don't know about that enter into this.

But looking at the ruin that the collapse of the Catholic Church brought to the lives of many people I have known over the years, including family members, I have to say that it looks as though the sheep were not very well defended from the wolf.