Rid of John Paul...finally

Now that the recently-senile and always-bungling old pope is at last gone, perhaps the Catholic Church can wake up to some of the crises in the world instead of worrying about who's using contraceptives and whatever other ancient concerns it, alone, has. Since JP II packed the court with like-thinking cronies of his, I doubt if the Church will take on its true responsibilities as a wealthy and influential world power, but anything is possible.
First on the agenda should be whatever it takes to greatly improve relations between the Muslims and the Christians, people the Muslims see as representative of the western world, to whatever extent that is true. The new pope and let's hope he is a true humanitarian, not someone who goes around kissing the earth for a show must emphasize people first, not ritual or dogma, regardless of their beliefs and practices or whether they are Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, agonistic, atheist, Christian, or whatever.
At the same time, the Church must forget about birth control and focus on the hungry of the world: one obvious way you do that is to encourage small family sizes duh as China has been doing for years, not especially in Africa and South America where the Church has much influence over the uneducated masses humongous families, as the policies of the recent jackass of a pope did.
This is taken from a New Times article of today the online edition, if that makes any difference:
The Roman Catholic Church is, more than ever, a global institution with global problems. With more than one billion members, amounting to half the world's Christians and 17 percent of the world's population, it is the largest and wealthiest religious or charitable institution on the planet.
But the biggest concerns of the new century - the turmoil within the Muslim world and the explosive shift of economic power to India and China - did not draw the focus of John Paul. As he proved, the church's leader is capable of changing the course of history. But the church has to make choices.
NB, for the alt.usage.english types:
Please check and, if necessary, edit the above to correct any grammatical or spelling errors, that being your bailiwick.

Charles Riggs
There are no accented letters in my email address.