Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery.
The Pope? How many divisions has he got?
I don't think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you're president.
Practically every movie that shows the pope or even a bishop as a character, and in much of western literature of the last 300 or 400 years, these are portrayed as awful figures.
In my stunted career as a scholar, I'd read promissory notes, papal bulls and guidelines for Inquisitorial interrogation. Dante, too. Boccaccio... But after 1400? Nihil.
To be honest, I don't really care about any pope. It's not something I think about much, to be quite honest with you.
The pope is a very... passionate man. He likes to get out with the people, and with that comes a large security risk.
I wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.
The death of Pope John Paul II led many of different faiths and of no faith to acknowledge their debt to the Roman Catholic Church for holding on to absolutes that the rest of us can measure ourselves against.
Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.