Taking pot shots at holy cows without even troubling to study the deeper philosophical issues involved — especially where a recently deceased and well-loved public figure is involved — is a cheap and nasty way of drumming up some publicity, which has a long and dishonorable history. So here goes: two of the most respectable newspapers have joined in the campaign to make Karol Wojty?a a saint (posters saying “Santo Subito” have been a common sight for the last year in Poland). It seems, however, that to be sainted it is not enough to be an all round good guy. It’s not enough to lay down one’s life for one’s fellow man or woman; not enough to shelter Jews from Nazis; not enough to act as a human shield against surgical strikes (or bulldozers for that matter); not enough to stick by the principles of a revealed faith in the teeth of people calling for “modernisation.” You also have to break the laws of physics. So now people are burrowing into the Pope’s past to find “evidence” of miracles. Serious newspapers are reporting this wild goose chase. [Self-censorship follows: it had something to do with infantilism.]