The last time Firing Line had looked at the Papacy (#S339) was during the brief

tenure of Pope John Paul I. As today's show was being taped, Pope John Paul II was in the midst of his historic visit to his native Poland. A detail-filled conversation ranging from the election of Karol Wojtyla to, as WFB puts it, the "ritual excommunication of Daniel Patrick Moynihan" by the New York Times (for coming out in favor of aid to private schools), from the tangible effects of prayer on the psyche to the fact that, as Father Greeley puts it, "anti-Catholicism is as American as blueberry pie." Father Greeley on the papal election: "I think the first thing [the cardinals] thought about was a reward to Poland for its strong faith in the face of Communist persecution. The second thing that occurred to them is here was a man who knew how to deal with Communism. He knew how to deal with it intellectually, because he was a philosopher and he understood Marxist philosophy. He sometimes amused himself by arguing with Party members about Marx, whom they hadn't read and he had. But also because he understood it politically."