A Closer Embrace: Washington and the Vatican

The Christian Science Monitor has a interesting analysis explaining why President Bush will be the first sitting United Sates President to attend a papal funeral. Below is the money paragraph:

The current President Bush and his wife, Laura, will be joined by the two immediate past US presidents, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, representing the US at the Vatican on Friday. All told, some 200 world leaders and several kings will be in attendance, an unprecedented global convergence.

"The thing that makes this papacy different from others is the fact that it's been thrust into the 20th and 21st century," says John Kenneth White, a political scientist at Catholic University. "The pope occupies a world role. He's not just head of the Catholic church, but he's head of a state whose moral authority is something that is sought after by other governments and whose positions are paid attention to by other governments."

Papal Power: What no one else will say about John Paul II.

Self styled contrarian Christopher Hitchens offers an alternative view of John Paul II and Catholicism.

Church's Global Agenda Includes Economics, Islam and Science

This NY Times article gives a good overview of the global issues facing the new pope and the church.

An Alternative View of JP2

Author Thomas Cahill says Pope John Paul II was more a political figure, than a great religious one in this piece entitled, The Price of Infallibility.