I still haven’t seen the controversial statue of Pope John Paul II at Rome’s Termini Station. Next week I’m taking a train in and hope to gawk at it as it deserves.

Openly criticized across the political spectrum, on social networks and by commuters, the statue has also brought dim views from the Vatican’s daily newspaper itself. L’Osservatore Romano said it ”resembles a sentry box” and that its head is ”excessively spherical”. The city commission has listed several points it sees in need of intervention. Among them are the statue’s face, the head’s welding and inclination, the arm, the cloak, and the shoulder.

And that it reminds not a few of a very famous Italian dictator:

Some Romans and tourists think the giant artwork looks more like Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

”That bullet-like head on top, it reminds me of Mussolini,” said Enrico, a 42-year-old computer programmer who commutes from Latina south of Rome.

American tourist Sandra Hillhouse, 24, from Arizona, said: ”I don’t understand it at all. He looks more like one of those weird creatures from Star Trek”.

Well, anyone but the conservative religious leader Karol Wojtyla. But here’s the surprise:

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno has since been facing calls from political and cultural figures to ”do something” about a statue some think gives visitors an embarrassing impression of Rome’s contemporary cultural scene.

He said he would bow to popular opinion.

”If public opinion coalesces around a negative view, we’ll have to take that into consideration”.

So, presumably, if popular opinion were to express a largely negative view of the Vatican, Mayor Alemanno would have it renovated. It seems a negative view has been steadily coalescing for a few centuries around the papal palace, and has taken a turn for the worse in recent years.

But who ever took a politician at his or her word?