Religious Leaders Finally Getting Some Respect
Apparently attitudes really are changing, and it's worth asking why. Well, for one reason, by far the most decisive, popular, respected and effective Catholic pope in the last four decades of the 20th century, John Paul II, was also the most traditionalist and conservative. He did not tell people: "If you remain Catholic, we'll happily change the rules to make it less onerous for you," the compromise then being widely touted as the sure-fire formula to keep young people securely in church.