WSJ: Even Fidel Castro Bows to John Paul II

OpinionJournal - The Western Front: "What does Fidel Castro know that many American liberals don't seem ever to have understood about Pope John Paul II? That's something worth asking as the dictator in Havana issued a personal statement of condolence and has allowed his people three days to mourn, three days to publicly act like a normal society amid a social structure otherwise built on fear.

Pope John Paul II stood up to the communists around the world and emboldened millions by saying with his words and his actions that there will be a moral accounting for what is done here on earth.

This triumph of morality and hope over fear and despotism has never been fully understood by the post-Vietnam American left.

Before the pope's death, even Castro came to understand that he had to acknowledge papal power, even while fearing the people power that was likely to unleash. It's unfortunate that John Paul II will not be here to see democracy take root in the Muslim world. But his message that governments must be held to a higher moral standard in respecting basic human dignity will be no less powerful as free societies begin to sprout in the Middle East. "