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The first (and probably the last) slavic pope ever.
I have mixed feelings for him. He was a bit of an odd bird. Taking all the fanatical catholic views aside, he did do a lot of good to the world and to humanization of christianity. He did the historic move when he appologized for all the bad the catholic church did in the past, like oppressing Jews, women, minorities etc... He was also the first Pope to walk into a Mosk in Siria in an atempt to bridge the gap and lessen the hate between religions. He fought for the fall of communism in Poland and the iron curtain as a whole. He believed in freedom and realized that corrupted communist regimes weren't providing for it. Commendable.
But at the same time he had some seriously extreme conservative views, which most certainly don't belong to the 21st century. Yeah I know that the Catholic Church is a conseravtive organization in it's core, but still... these are the new times...it's time to move on. Despite all his preaching about women being equal he never allowed them to be admitted into priesthood. Which made then unequal by default. Then he proclaimed homosexuality as evil. I think I don't even have to say what he thought of homosexual marriages, then. Abstinence from sex was the only true way to God in his opinion. He was against abortion (which he called legalized mass-murder) and at the same time he was against contraception (oh, the irony). Can I still respect him despite all these bad sides to him? Actually... No. ... I can't respect a man who claimed homosexuality is the modern form of evil, or the one who didn't recognize women's right to have a choice over their own bodies, or who is against the use of condoms in Africa, which could save millions of lives. I'm sorry, but a person who thinks like that is either a hypocrite or a blinded conserative. Either way I can't respect him. All taht being said I can still appreciate the good things he did. He was an important figure in history. He's a definitive proof that no man is all good or all bad. It's just a matter of ballance between the two.
Can you imagine his reaction when he first realizes there's no heaven, though? (but like some other form of after-life completely unrelated to christian dogma). He'd be like: "WTF is this? What IS this shit? Were are Jesus and all the angels?!"
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