For Andrei Codrescu, Romanian-born author (The Blood Countess, Road Scholar) and National Public Radio commentator, the Pope's visit is cause for something less than celebration.
"I used to like this Pope, for his unpopish qualities. He was a working man once, he wrote modern poetry and,
best of all, he was an activist. He was so active on behalf of the Polish Solidarity movement, the KGB tried to kill
him. There was even an apocryphal story about him saving a Jewish woman in Warsaw during the War. Even if
this story isn't true, it's remarkable that it can even be told. Popes never save Jews; quite the opposite.
"But then something happened. Maybe the assassin's bullet turned him around; even popes can feel mortal, after
all. The dynamic, people-loving, proletarian poet Pope turned into an ultraconservative doctrinaire filled with
ceremonial popishness. He has reiterated the doctrine of infallibility; as world population grows, he rages against
birth control and he hasn't particularly spoken up against the anti-Semitism that rages again in Poland,
encouraged in no small measure by his former protégé, Lech Walesa. One might say this was a Pope for the
times, but now the times have changed. He was once a force for progress; he is now an obstruction to it. Maybe
the job is bigger than the man; he seems smaller now that the millennium is upon us.
"But I'm sure that his visit to the U.S. will be a success; the Pope's entertainment value is still pretty high. He has a
bestseller out, and in the current conservative era of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, he's a marketer's
dream."
How do you feel about the Pope? 
