An Interesting Query ...for all?

Upon beginning my own blog, I was troubled by a lack of significant material to ponder. It was not for a lack of trying. There is, just look around, so much. In the past fortnight we had Sandy Berger copping a plea, Terry Shiavo being (court-mandated mind you) starved to death, Goldman Sachs telling us a barrel of oil will cost more than my first Jeep, one of our service men in Iraq being posthumously awarded the M.O.H., and of course Pope John Paul II passing away.
I have read the articles and the reviews of his papacy, even the ones that tend to think he was a blight. Whether or not you think J.P. II or Reagan had anything to do with the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, you do have to admit the coincidence. The coincidence that I speak of is J.P. II's first visit back to Poland after becoming Pope, then the rise of the "soldarity" movement, then the eventual fall of the Eastern Bloc. One can connect the dots, or one can simply ignore his influence. There are those who talk about the Soviet economic breakdown, or the liberalism of Gorbachev, but let's not kid ourselves.
So a big "what if" is left ripe and juicey for the intellectual picking. That is, what if Pope John Paul II had made a visit to China. Some may have read about the "underground" Catholic church in mainland China, and how the people's government has suppressed and harrassed this fledgling, non-secular force for many years. What if in deed. Would Tianammen square have had underpinnings of cries of religious freedom? And if so would the world press have been so sympathetic to its cause? One could imagine that lone soul standing before the line of Chinese, Soviet-made tanks while holding a crucifix. Would that almost, forgotten man have been on the covers of news journals around the world, let alone the U.S.?