Pope John Paul II

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Is John Paul too dogmatic in his approach to religion? I ask as one who is opposed to anything that comes close to fanaticism--and yet, in the end, the question is one for Catholics, not for me. Should he not take social issues into consideration when seeking to ban birth control, as many argue? Is he too anxious to sanctify Pius XII? These too are matters not for a Jew such as myself but for Catholics who remember the past. If they want to follow the example of Pius, whose silences worried a generation of believers, that is their choice.

But finally, I wonder how John Paul feels about tens of millions of Americans going to movie theaters to see a film that, in effect, preaches the denunciation of Vatican II and Nostra Aetate, the 1965 encyclical that condemned anti-Semitism. Is he comforted by the fact that for many Jews, he, along with John XXIII, will always remain one of the two great Popes of all time?

Elie Wiesel, a human-rights activist, received the Nobel Peace Prize