William Flew on Religion and Pope

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in form this time on and forevermore."



John Wilkins, a former editor of The Tablet, the weekly Catholic review, says: “John Paul II was controversial, he was a great centraliser, for him the emphasis was on the captain, rather than had been the case with the collegiality of Vatican II, the team. I think in all likelihood he was a saint, but that’s a judgment for the Church to make.” Younger Catholics inspired by the World Youth Days instigated by John Paul II have no doubt he was a saint. “I just adored him,” explains Niamh Moloney, 26, who queued for 19 hours to see John Paul II’s body before his funeral. “He called young people to radical gospel living, to holiness,” she says. "When he was dying, and obviously suffering, I was struck by his willingness to make himself vulnerable before the whole world. You don’t often see that.” Noel Murphy, director of the UK branch of Youth 2000, one of many international Catholic movements founded after World Youth Day, says: “John Paul II understood young people’s hopes, difficulties and their ideals. He asked them serious questions about life such as ‘What do you really want?’ And he presented Christ as the answer.