Postulating the Papal Legacy

The Pope is back in the news, and the Washington Post has a couple of timely reviews of books that take a look back at the papacy of J2P2 and its impact on the world:

"Ironically, John Paul II, in his determination to restore the medieval European Catholicism into which he was born, became an inadvertent avatar of a new Catholic fundamentalism. The great question now is whether his defensive, pre-Enlightenment view of the faith will maintain a permanent grip on the Catholic imagination. He has been an apostle of peace, yet the last contradiction of his papacy may be how, if this narrow aspect of his legacy takes hold, he will have helped to undermine peace -- not through political purpose, but through deeply felt religious conviction."