Hitchens on the Pope

Hitchens, as usual, has the guts to say what needs to be said, when it needs to be said.

Credit is certainly due the Pope for his efforts to defeat communism. But let's not go overboard praising him as a "champion of human freedom," as President Bush referred to him today. There's this, for example, (from a NY Times article this week on unprecedented religious unity in Jerusalem against a gay pride event planned for that city)...

When the first WorldPride festival was held five years ago in Rome, religious opposition came from the Vatican, while secular opposition came from a neo-Fascist group that vowed to hold a counterdemonstration. But the neo-Fascists canceled their demonstration, the march came off peacefully, and even a few center-right politicians joined many thousands of marchers.

One day later, however, Pope John Paul II appeared on a balcony over St. Peter's Square and delivered a message expressing his "bitterness" that the gay festival had gone forward, calling it an "offense to the Christian values of a city that is so dear to the hearts of Catholics across the world."