Actually, PJP2 is a contestant for greatest man of the age among a lot of journalists it seems. As for reunion of Rome and Canterbury, in America, we get taught that the entire row was over divorces and nascent English nationalism (you had to be astute to get the latter), so I never have seen that concept as illogical, nor have I really seen Anglicanism as "Protestant," especially since I live in a nation where Protestantism largely follows the Puritan aesthetic. Though I do find it telling that I think of churches in their aesthetic capacity--churches as an art form, art within the churches, sermons as art, the rituals as mass performance art, and so on--and that may have something to do with my perception of Anglicanism generally. I see Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Eastern Orthodoxy as being similar formally and therefore mostly the same.

Of course, at the time you wrote this, the Pope had been shot only 3 months earlier by Mehmet Ali Agca, I don't know anything about how his condition progressed after the shooting and you mentioned that you don't remember the context, but it's possible that he had been in the news at the time. It's worth noting, however, that he is a good contestant for greatest religious figure of the age because of his work in fixing millenia old poor relations with Judaism and Islam. Of course, in my media-addled mind ages are fairly short, the vastness of things like the "Age of Rome" is nearly incomprehensible. Geologic time is easier because it's just a quick gloss of information. An ice age can last a million years and produce only a paragraph of material that I'm likely to encounter. It seems a modern year cannot go by without justifying a complete encyclopedia.