From: National Catholic Reporter | Date: June 5, 1998| Author: Hickey, Denis | COPYRIGHT 1998 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

By Richard P. McBrien HarperSanFrancisco, 520 pages, $29.50

Not only is this pope the dominant religious leader of his day, the same has been true of most of his predecessors. Perhaps the only remotely comparable religious figure today is the Dalai Lama, but there is a vast difference between the two offices: by and large, the latter's "faithful" are not only religiously but also ethnically one; the pope's flock is catholic as well as Catholic.

The story of th...