Ann Landers Draws Fire for Slur Against Pope

Advice columnist Ann Landers apologized Thursday after using an ethnic slur to describe Pope John Paul II in a published interview.

“I should not have used a slang term for Polish,” Landers said in a statement Thursday. “It was poor judgment, and I apologize.”

The columnist drew howls of protest from Polish Americans after the New Yorker this week published a profile of her in which she was asked for her impressions of Pope John Paul II, whom she has met.

“Looks like an angel. He has the face of an angel,” she said. “His eyes are sky blue, and his cheeks are pink and adorable-looking, and he has a sweet sense of humor.

“Of course, he’s a Polack,” she laughingly told the interviewer. “They’re very anti-woman.”

Edward G. Dykla, president of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, a fraternal organization of about 100,000 members, said he was stunned.

“Ethnic groups throughout this country have fought to get rid of these slurs against all of us, and then Ann Landers throws one out,” he said.

Edward Moskal, president of the Polish American Congress, which represents about 1 million people, had his own advice for Landers: “She should have shut up after she made the nice remark about the Pope.”

In apologizing, she used one of her trademark phrases: “It’s time to get out the wet noodle and give myself 40 lashes.”

The New Yorker article by Christopher Buckley described Landers’ Jewish upbringing in Sioux City, Iowa, and her rise to become the columnist a World Almanac poll once found to be the most influential woman in the United States.