Worthy of an essay in itself - heck, a whole book.
Many - not all - of the defenders of such enthusiasms as abortion and gay marriage have as their ideological underpinning a religious belief in the inevitable direction of history, which is why "progressives" tend only to view progress in one dimension. This is one of several "gifts" to current political culture from one Karl Marx.
In point of simple fact, no one was more progressive in terms of being a causative agent of change in the 80's and early 90's than the late Pope unless his name was Ronald Reagan. This has contemporary progressives grinding their molars to a powder but it happens to be a fact. Much of the venom we are seeing at the moment from the unclean pens of the Guardian and the NY Times is a result of a political class certain that it was the future watching the real future marching off in an unexpected and decidedly unapproved direction. It's a bitterness with which I find it impossible to sympathize.
>>Worthy of an essay in itself - heck, a whole book.
I'd suggest Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy does a great job of covering that theme. If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend doing so. President Bush obviously has, among others in the Administration.
Over the years, I have come to understand a critical difference between the world of fear and the world of freedom. In the former, the primary challenge is finding the inner strength to confront evil. In the latter, the primary challenge is finding the moral clarity to see evil.
The Pope had moral clarity, in important ways, at an important time. The Left was, and is, lacking.