Nobody wants to say anything bad about a dead guy.

Now that the Pope has passed, newspapers, networks and some of our most entertaining conservative pundits are scrambling to slather on papal praise.

But without disrespecting the death of an international religious icon too much, I have something to say about all this.

I don’t think the Pope was so hot.

I don’t think that anyone with a concern for women’s equality, gay rights, or the looming prospect of an overpopulation crisis, would disagree with me.

When John Paul II became Pope in 1978, he was quoted as saying, “If I make mistakes, you will correct me.” But looking at the history of his papacy, however, shows that the Pope was frequently less than receptive to constructive criticism.

John Paul II’s papacy will likely be most renowned for his disregard for — and successful resistance to — the notion of change.

Though the Pope was credited with having a hand in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, helping to combat world poverty and advocating worldwide disarmament, this seems to be where his concern for logic and reason end and his stubbornness begins.

Stubborn people piss other people off. Especially when the things you refuse to budge on are the kind of things that could potentially, like, improve the planet, and stuff.

But the Pope was all about maintaining the Catholic tradition, even if it meant turning a blind eye to what was actually going on in the world.

In 1994, despite growing evidence of a population boom for the 21st century that had been confirmed by various experts, the Pope continued to preach that the use of birth control was immoral. Even for the sake of global welfare, and in the face of looming worldwide disaster, the man would not change his mind.

The New York Times’ obituary of John Paul II credits him as being “sympathetic” to the struggle of “women, blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals,” which leaves one wondering — what did he ever do to help them?

The Pope claimed he cared about improving the status of women in society, yet in the same breath, declared that motherhood was a woman’s most important duty and that her greatest ambition should be to bear children. Hardly an improvement of status considering that has been the approved status since, oh, I don’t know, the beginning of time?

Despite his distinctly conservative opinions on many issues, the Pope has been a critic of the Bush administration and its decision to send troops to Iraq. Ever an advocate for peace at any cost, the Pope said of war, “violence kills what it tends to create.” Recent visits with both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney afforded the Pope the opportunity to voice his opposition.

But where his thoughts about the value of war might please some of the tree-hugging set, it insighted anger in others. Everybody’s FOX News fave, Bill O’Reilly, had only kind words to say about the Pope after his death (“Nobody’s perfect, but this guy was close in his personal behavior and the way he conducted himself”), but it was a mere two years ago when O’Reilly lashed out at him.

“As I’ve said before, I believe that John Paul is naive and detached from reality,” O’Reilly said of the Pope’s disapproval of the war.

While it’s not unlike O’Reilly to contradict himself by expressing two completely different opinions at two different points in time, speaking out against the war in Iraq did serve to alienate the Pope from the people for at least a short time.

But the reaction to that stance paled in comparison to the one the Pope took when the first allegations of child molestation by Catholic priests emerged in 2002.

More than 80 priests were accused in the United States, but meanwhile, the Pope just chilled at the Vatican. He once again expressed his “solidarity and concern,” but that was about the extent of his input, until he was called upon to attend a conference about the accusations.

American Catholics were fuming, because even they knew that the Pope was wrong. They tried and sentenced many of the accused priests without the his blessing. But many Catholics remained quite chagrined, up until the Pope’s death last week.

Now everybody is right back to acting like he was the best guy around.

Not to say he was a bad guy — because he certainly wasn’t. He was a good guy who just didn’t want to change anything.

It is understandable that the media want to reflect on the Pope’s life in a positive way. Because you can’t really publish a 13,000 word obituary full of insults, now can you?

Insulting the dead has never been acceptable, and I don’t blame the media for glossing over a lot of stuff, as usual.

The media don’t want to change anything, either.

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