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Recite his strong points? Sure. He was directly responisble for liberating Eastern Europe from the evil empire. I read Carl Sandberg's biography and found it particularly compelling in its description of how he worked with Reagan and Reagan's cabinet--very quietly, behind the scenes. He is also a very holy prayerful man--I would say mystical. His early wish was to be a contemplative monk, a Carmelite priest. He is firm on moral principles and will not budge an inch on abortion or contraception or homosexuality. He is a brilliant phenomenologist who has written a prodigious number of encyclicals.

But he is a lousy adminsitrator. He has left appointments to others and these have led to an unusual number of corrupt episcopacies.The gay subculture has been allowed to proliferate--primarily due to this Pope's inattentiveness and naivte. But Christ warned of this. He said we should be like serpents. The children of the light have to learn from the children of darkness. In other words we have to toughen up and be realistic and at times ruthless in how we wield power. This Pope has been far too soft with apostates and perverts--and they have damaged the Church enormously and ruined many thousands of lives.

Yes, I find these World Youth bashes problematic. They are a celebration of joy, but they trivialize the faith and its difficulties. They also sanction a genre of music that is in openly hostile to reason and serenity. Why feed into such a culture? Do we assume the young will not listen unless we pander to them? Must we reverse roles and make the world's culture the model for the our own? This is an attitude that has spread from parish to parish throughout every level of the Church. It certainly smacks of pandering. The young want something more from the Church than more rock and roll and more noise and more youthful exhuberance.