On this topic, I don't have an opinion, or at least I don't have a strong one. I admire what he did to help encourage the fall of communism ... and to some extent at least for bringing the church up to date in science ... but that is as far as my enthusiasm extends.
Lindsay Perigo has a different and surprising view :
Waiting for the Pope to die has been a salutary experience. We Objectivists, and secularists generally, tend to think of the Catholic Church, wishfully, as being in as terminal a condition as its "Holy Father" over the past few years—the domain of fetid old moral despots and contemptible child-molesters. The events surrounding the death of John Paul II have given this Objectivist, at least, a rude reawakening.
For better or worse, he was a very influential pope. He's even inspired a comic book called Incredible Popeman.
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