Though Pope John Paul II was consistently vigorous in his opposition to gay rights, and equally vigorous about telling the teeming populations of poor countries not to use birth control, and still more vigorous about telling rich countries that they had to give their money to overpopulated poor ones, not all moments of his papacy were marked by vigor. In November 1993, he tripped on the hem of his robe and fell while descending three steps from his throne to greet visitors at the Vatican. On that occasion, he fractured and dislocated his right shoulder. Five months later, in April 1994, while climbing out of a bathtub in his Vatican apartment, he fell again, fracturing and dislocating his right thighbone, part of which had to be replaced with metal alloys. Then in 1999 on a trip to Poland, he fell once more and needed stitches in his head. In a further misstep, when Cardinal Bernard F. Law was forced to leave as archbishop of Boston because of his involvement in the church sex abuse scandal, instead of demoting him, Pope John Paul II named him archpriest of a basilica under Vatican direction in Rome, thus sending a very weird message, which went completely ignored by his one billion followers. But at least he pig-headedly stuck to his guns advocating against gay rights and birth control. What a guy! (By Scott Rose)