25 years of Pope John Paul II

Thursday is the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's selection as pope. It's a rare milestone, as John L. Allen Jr. of National Catholic Reporter points out, because only two other popes have reigned 25 years, Leo XIII and Pius IX, both in the 19th century.

You'll be seeing lots of mainstream press coverage of the event this week, but for more in-depth coverage, and great analysis, check out National Catholic Reporter's issue on the anniversary. It's balanced and fair and includes the legacy John Paul II will leave behind. But the editors are not afraid to point out the mixed record of this pope.

An editorial summarizes: "John Paul II certainly has energized sectors of the church with his charisma, his travels and his teaching, but he also leaves behind an American Catholic community that is deeply polarized ideologically and seemingly adrift in terms of governance. The sexual abuse crisis of 2002 is the most recent and dramatic eruption of these underlying structural realities.

"American Catholics have rarely been as angry with the leadership of their church, and therefore as angry with Rome, as they are today. Polling, even before the crisis, suggested that a substantial block of Catholics in the United States regarded the institutional dimension of their faith, especially the hierarchy, as increasingly irrelevant."