There's a sexist joke, popular among theologians, in which God, a woman, is in the act of creating the world: 'And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God said "Er - could I just see the darkness again?"' If this is not Pope John Paul II's kind of God, it's as much because of the hesitancy as the gender. If he were ever in two minds on a subject, both of them would be infallible. Not for nothing was the priest who taught him theology in Rome known as 'The Rigid'. As a Polish bishop newly arrived in the city to take part in Pope John XXIII's Second Vatican Council, he was appalled by the sight of his fellow bishops quarrelling, lobbying and criticising. This was not the custom of the traditionalist Polish hierarchy, assured in their monopoly of absolute truth.

LRB 3 February 2005 | PDF Download