Let the Palestinians pick their own alternative. A real election would be a pleasant surprise, but they can flip a coin for all I care.

Either one of two things is true:



1. The Roman Catholic Pope is in control of his priests and giving them orders to molest children.

2. The Roman Catholic Pope is helpless, and cannot now and never could control the priests who molest kids.

Which of the two alternatives is true is not important. In either case, the Roman Catholic Pope has no authority or ability to stop the priests.

According to that, he's gotta go. Either ordered it, or can't stop it.



Maybe he doesn't have to "go," but given his less-than-aggressive performance in that controversy so far, he, like Arafat, may not be relevant to solving the problem, and it's probably going to have to be handled at lower levels of the Catholic Church.