The Washington Post and the Pope

Published April 3, 2005 9:30pm ET



THE WASHINGTON POST‘S COVERAGE of Pope John Paul II today featured on page 1, among other things, a news “analysis” by Hanna Rosin. It had a promising title, “His Legacy: A Papacy and Church Transformed.” Yet by the fifth paragraph of her 2,000-word piece, one got the impression that Ms. Rosin doesn’t think much of John Paul II’s legacy:

For those who expected more from the modernization–American priests ordained in the 1960s, say, Catholic women who wanted to be priests or Latin American leaders who wanted a partner in revolution–the pope not only betrayed his promise but locked the church in place for years to come.

The idea that there was a “promise” that the Pope “betrayed” shows such an ignorance of the basic character of the Catholic Church and such a fanciful understanding of what any Pope could or would have done, that one wonders what she has in store for the late pontiff.

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