Pope John Paul II: a political obituary

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John Paul II was a charismatic figure, who was able to somewhat offset the protracted decline in mass support for the Church and hold the institution together. His departure will intensify the internal and external pressures on this ancient, sclerotic and reactionary institution. The absurd lengths to which the media is going to use John Paul II’s death to promote the Church is itself a contradictory expression of the crisis of that institution, and the bourgeois order which it defends.