The Energizer Peace Pope

Rumors of the Pope's demise have calmed down in recent weeks. Just checked in at National Catholic Reporter Web site to see if its great Rome correspondent John L. Allen Jr., had any updates in his Word from Rome column. Found this item of interest that serves as a reminder of the Pope's continuing power to influence world peace.

Allen writes: "Officers of the Simon Wiesenthal Center were in Rome this week to give John Paul II a humanitarian award for "forging an unprecedented relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people,” as well as a “profound commitment to world peace and tolerance.” The pope joins previous honorees such as Francois Mitterand, Margaret Thatcher, and (the Wiesenthal Center is in Los Angeles, after all) celebrities Michael Douglas and Billy Crystal.

"Rabbi Marvin Hier called on the pope to join efforts to have suicide bombings declared a crime against humanity. Hier said an “international mechanism” should be set up to put suicide bombers on notice, as has been done for war criminals in Africa and the former Yugoslavia.

“If the pope says ‘this is the crime of the 21st century and we have to do something about it,’ that will provide the fodder for political leaders to do more than they have done, because they have ignored this subject,” Hier said.