The American Spectator

p> TUESDAY br> HERE I AM AT THE BREAKERS in Palm Beach, Florida. Wow, this is a fancy hotel and I have a room right on the water. Right now, I am watching the funeral of the Pope. Now, the greatest man of the 20th century was Winston Churchill. But I think the Pope might have been the greatest man of the last 50 years. Before Reagan, before Margaret Thatcher, he stood up to the Communists and offered hope for a life of the soul instead of just the machine. If anyone deserves credit for the breakup of the Eastern bloc, any one man, that man must be the Pope. He said that human life and the sacred human personality were worth more than any other doctrine, more worthy than the state or the system of production or the Red Army. /p>

He said that human life was sacrosanct, at every stage, from conception to old age and infirmity. He said that no human power had the right to murder innocent life. How ironic and horrifying that he died within days of the judicial murder of the utterly innocent Terri Schiavo.

To take a stand for human life above political correctness, above feminism, above the tenor of the day that life is often an inconvenience — what a hero. The ocean is crashing against the breakers below my room, and I keep thinking that this Pope was as indomitable as the ocean. He could be called home, but he could not be broken.

He was the best friend the human spirit has had in a very long time.

p> Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu. His “Diary” appears in every issue of The American Spectator. This installment ran in the June TAS. To subscribe, please click here. br> /p>