A.N. Wilson writes in the Independent:
“The secular world would hope that we might at last have a Pope who
thought it was better to give out free condoms than to encourage the
spread of Aids in Africa, but even this seems an unlikely possibility.
…
John Paul II will not be remembered as an old bigot who would not give
condoms to Aids-ridden Africans, nor as a man who outraged American
gays, feminists and liberals the world over. He will be remembered as
the Pope who helped to bring down the Berlin Wall.”
There are plenty of good things to say about the late Pope, and you can
currently hear them on the television, but on the down side, he
discouraged liberation theology, socially progressive churches and
pro-Marxist priests throughout Latin America in the 1980’s, appointing
cardinals and bishops who shared his politically conservative views.
The Pope was also embarrassingly ignorant of the teachings of Buddhism.