SOURCE: “Conversations With the Pope,” in New York Times Book Review, April 22, 1984, p. 12.

In the following review, Pelikan discusses John Paul's theological views in “Be Not Afraid!”;

When the Pope speaks ex cathedra (literally, from the throne)—“that is, in carrying out his office as the pastor and teacher of all Christians,” as the First Vatican Council explained this phrase in 1870—he is believed to be preserved from any error in matters of faith and morals. But whatever someone's personal or theological views about this ex cathedra infallibility may be, it is in many ways more interesting and certainly more unusual when a pope elects to speak in public extra cathedram, that is, in a personal capacity.

That is what the current Pontiff has done in “Be Not Afraid!,”; a book whose title comes from the words with which Karol Cardinal Wojtyla greeted the people of Rome after...