NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

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Is there a reason Newsweek has studiously avoided doing any stories at ll on the Pope's visit? I thought, after TIME's cover story last week, that Newsweek would surely come out with their own this week. But there's not even any mention of it in the current issue! One gets referred to the Washington Post (a sister publication) instead, which had this article in its 'In Faith' section.


Benedict not a single-issue Pope
By Thomas Reese, SJ
April 9, 2008

The arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in the middle of a presidential election is raising hopes among Republicans, fears among Democrats and excitement in the media. Republicans hope that the pope will strongly condemn abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, while the Democrats fear that he will. The media is looking forward to covering the papal visit through this lens.

Everyone remembers the controversy during the last election when about a dozen bishops said they would deny Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. That only about a dozen of the approximately 190 diocesan bishops said this is conveniently forgotten. No editor wants to run the headline “180 Bishops Say Nothing About Kerry and Communion.” Nor did many in the media notice that John Paul II gave Communion to pro-choice Italian politicians. [True?????]

The media (except those who cover religion as a specialty) too frequently see abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research as the only issues in which the Catholic hierarchy has any interest. Even a superficial reading the “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” issued by the U.S. Catholic bishops last November shows that they have a big agenda that does not fit within any party.

Let no one misunderstand me. The Pope and the bishops are very concerned about abortion and do not consider it just one issue among many. The Pope will speak to this issue and the media should cover it.

What I object to is the ignoring of everything else of political significance that he will say on Iraq, terrorism, poverty, refugees, disarmament, the environment, third world debt and trade. On these issues he is usually to the left of Democrats.

When Congressional Democrats lined up to vote for Bush’s Iraq war, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was opposing it like his boss John Paul II. Last Easter, he complained that “nothing positive comes from Iraq” as it is “torn apart by continual slaughter.” If he was not so diplomatic, the Pope would turn to President Bush in the Rose Garden and say, “I told you so.”

The Pope is undoubtedly looking forward more to his address to the United Nations than to his visit to the White House. In his UN speech he will make the point that international politics is not just about economics and power, but must be guided by ethical and moral principles.

“[L]aw and order are guarantees of freedom,” he notes. “Yet law can be an effective force for peace only if its foundations remain solidly anchored in natural law, given by the Creator.”

We can get a hint of what Benedict might say at the U.N. by looking at his earlier statements on international issues, especially his annual addresses to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See and his annual messages for the world day of peace.

In these speeches he has spoken of “our common mission of peace.” He condemned terrorism and “the law of might.” He quoted John Paul’s famous words, “There can be no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness.”

Benedict has said, “[O]ne cannot speak of peace in situations where human beings are lacking even the basic necessities for living with dignity.”

Further more, “Peace is a commitment and a manner of life which demands that the legitimate aspirations of all should be satisfied, such as access to food, water and energy, to medicine and technology, or indeed the monitoring of climate change.”

He called for intercultural and inter-religious dialogue to “foster cooperation on matters of mutual interest, such as the dignity of the human person, the search for the common good, peace-building and development.”

He spoke of “distressing images of huge camps throughout the world of displaced persons and refugees, who are living in makeshift conditions in order to escape a worse fate, yet are still in dire need. Are these human beings not our brothers and sisters?”

He pleaded for help to “refugees and displaced persons” in Africa. He prayed that the world would “bring aid and comfort to the suffering populations,” especially to Darfur.

He called on prosperous states to provide help through drawing more generously upon their resources. He noted that “less than half of the immense sums spent worldwide on armaments would be more than sufficient to liberate the immense masses of the poor from destitution. This challenges humanity’s conscience.”

He has said it is “completely fallacious” for governments to “count on nuclear arms as a means of ensuring the security of their countries.” He called on them to “change their course by clear and firm decisions, and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament.”

He expressed “dismay” at the “continuing growth in military expenditure and the flourishing arms trade” and a general difference toward disarmament.

“How can there ever be a future of peace when investments are still made in the production of arms and in research aimed at developing new ones?” The Vatican has also called for a ban on cluster bombs.

And on economic issues, Benedict is no flack for capitalism. Bishops from the Third World tell him of the negative impact of globalization on their people. He has reminded the world of “the moral obligation to ensure that the economy is not governed solely by the ruthless laws of instant profit, which can prove inhumane.”

He calls for “prudent use of resources and an equitable distribution of wealth,” but he recognizes that aid “to poor countries must be guided by sound economic principles, avoiding forms of waste associated principally with the maintenance of expensive bureaucracies.”

The Pope’s representative to international agencies in Geneva has called for global labor standards and support for human rights of workers as an essential component of trade agreements.

Benedict, like his predecessor, has also called for “the rapid, total and unconditional cancellation” of the debt of poor countries. And more recently, his secretary of state called the U.S. embargo on Cuba “ethically unacceptable.”

Finally, this Pope has also spoken out on global warming. While Washington talks about alternative energy sources, he has put solar panels on Vatican roofs and made it the first carbon neutral state. Benedict may go down in history as the green pope just as John Paul went down in history as the conqueror of Communism.

“We need to care for the environment,” he writes, “it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion.”

He calls for “sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.” He believes that “time is short” for the world to respond to deal with environmental issues.

He calls on advanced countries like the U.S. “to reassess the high levels of consumption due to the present model of development, and … to invest sufficient resources in the search for alternative sources of energy and for greater energy efficiency.”

Will any of this wide agenda be covered in the media? Stay tuned.


Thomas J. Reese is senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center and a Jesuit priest. He is former editor of the Catholic weekly magazine America and author of Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.

U.S. to get a taste of
Pope's communication style
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor



PARIS, April 11 (Reuters) - Rule number one when Pope Benedict speaks: listen very carefully. Rule number two: be ready for surprises.

Joseph Ratzinger, who was a German university professor long before he became head of the Roman Catholic Church, is more seminar than soundbite when he speaks in public.

He can lecture as if only other philosophers and theologians were in the room, so listening hard or reading the text in full is essential. Even simple sermons can have an unexpected subliminal message.

Pope Benedict goes to the United States next week with a clear message of hope for its Catholics and appreciation for the role that faith and values play in American public life. The question papal experts ask now is how it will come across.

"He needs deciphering sometimes," said Thomas Noble, an historian of the papacy at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "He takes ideas very seriously and treats them at an elevated level."

In his three years as pope, the 80-year-old pontiff has displayed essentially three ways of communicating in public -- the complex speech, the simple homily and the surprise signal. All three are a challenge to today's soundbite culture.

THE COMPLEX SPEECH

Benedict is convinced that post-modern society -- especially in Europe -- is losing its moral compass by denying its roots in religion and embracing consumerism and individualism.

Just before his election in 2005, he highlighted this with a rare sound bite -- "the dictatorship of relativism ... whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

More typical was a 2004 debate about "the pre-political moral foundations of a liberal state" where his analysis was so convincing that his sparring partner -- the atheist German philosopher Juergen Habermas -- agreed with much of it.

But most readers would be lost in the jargon. "The ordinary person doesn't understand what relativism and post-modernism mean," said Georgetown University theologian Chester Gillis.

Benedict's 2006 Regensburg lecture was a learned discussion about faith, reason and ancient Greek philosophy. It contained a subtle call to Muslims to debate the role of reason in Islam.

Not easy to digest in any case, that message was drowned out when he quoted a Byzantine emperor saying Islam was violent and irrational. Violent protests broke out across the Muslim world and Benedict had to explain he did not agree with that view.

Benedict also met misunderstanding in his 2006 Auschwitz speech that developed the unusual argument that by killing Jews the Nazis ultimately wanted to destroy Christianity.

Jewish groups accused him of trying to "Christianize" the Holocaust and said he should have spoken instead more explicitly about German guilt and Christian anti-Semitism.

THE SIMPLE HOMILY

But Benedict can also deliver remarkably clear and effective sermons. Many get passed over by the secular media because they are mainly reflections on the day's scriptural readings.

"He's aware that, in the liturgy, you don't need to bring in heavy academic prose. You can speak simply and beautifully in a homily," said Monsignor Robert Batule, an American priest doing a comparative study of Benedict and the late Pope John Paul.

At the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, many young people there were not regular churchgoers and Benedict knew it. Instead of castigating them, though, he patiently sketched out his view of how Sunday Mass could help give meaning to their lives.

One year later in Regensburg, he dedicated a church organ with a short homily about how its pipes must all be in tune. Although he never mentioned Church dissidents, anyone listening to the Vatican's former doctrinal watchdog got the message.

Some of Benedict's most interesting comments are made off the cuff, in his native German or fluent Italian. A meeting with New York seminarians will show if he can do the same in English.

THE SURPRISE SIGNAL

Benedict's knack for sparking controversy often raises the question of whether some remarks, invariably delivered with a grandfatherly calm, are meant to shake up listeners as they do.

The controversial Regensburg speech clearly aimed to prompt a dialogue with Muslims. One has since started, even if the emperor's quote sowed misunderstanding and suspicion.

The pope surprised Muslims and some Catholics at Easter when he baptized a prominent Italian Muslim, Magdi Allam, in a gesture meant to stress the right to change religions. Again, an unresolved debate followed about whether that was appropriate.

"He never passes up an opportunity," Batule said. "He's not going to use occasions to throw bouquets but (to ensure) that key issues that need to be confronted actually get addressed.

'What's the big deal about the Pope anyway?':
Here's why his visit matters
By Benedicta Cipolla
Religion News Service
April 12, 2008


When Pope Benedict XVI makes his first trip to the U.S. Tuesday through April 20, with stops in Washington and New York, he will claim one in four Americans as his own. The trip will also be a chance to raise his profile - 81 percent of Americans said they know little about him, according to a recent Marist College poll.

Yet 42 percent of Americans polled said they would like to attend one of Benedict's public appearances, which suggests interest well beyond his Catholic flock.

So why does the Pope matter? Here's a look:

Vicar of Christ

The Pope is not just any religious leader. For 17 percent of the world's population, he is Christ's chosen representative on earth. As the sole successor of Peter, the apostle to whom Jesus entrusted the keys of his church and care of his flock, the Pope has full power and primacy over the Roman Catholic Church.

While each bishop oversees his particular diocese, only the Pope, as Supreme Pontiff and Bishop of Rome, exercises moral, doctrinal and jurisdictional authority over all the faithful. Put another way, no other faith invests so much power in the hands of one man.

U.S. Catholics

Six years after the clergy sex-abuse crisis erupted, the American church is still reeling from the aftershocks. Five dioceses have declared bankruptcy, priestly and religious vocations remain low, and a recent Pew Forum report revealed that one-third of so-called 'cradle Catholics' no longer identify as Catholics.

Immigration has helped offset the attrition, creating its own set of issues as the church adapts to the changing face of the faithful.

Benedict, however, will likely focus on the faith's fundamentals, as he has done throughout the three years of his papacy, highlighting America's vibrant religious tradition and urging Catholics to retain their identity in the public square.

Benedict's trip - plus six days of nonstop media attention - could provide a needed shot in the arm.

''It's not just the sex-abuse crisis. There's a real sense the [American] church needs new vitality, said Timothy Matovina, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.

Global moral authority

The Pope's position as arguably the most visible religious leader in the world affords him a prime pulpit from which to champion peace and justice.

Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, is widely credited with helping to bring about the end of Communism, and his unprecedented globe-trotting brought the Church's social-justice mission to millions around the world.

Since his election three years ago, Benedict has spoken out on the ''continual slaughter'' in Iraq, the ''catastrophic'' situation in Darfur, the imperative of protecting the environment and the ''scandal'' of poverty. It's no coincidence his first encyclical was on love, without which, he argues, there can be no peace.

While the Pope obviously speaks in Christian terms, not everyone who listens to his message need be Christian.

''He does have a spiritual dimension to all of his speeches and writing,'' said Nothwehr. ''People are more inclined these days to understand a journey of spirituality than any one religious belief. If he can be heard at that level as well, it would be a very opportune moment for him.''

Western-Muslim relations

In 2006, the Pope's lecture in Regensburg, Germany, caused a major kerfuffle among Muslims when he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said that Islam's Prophet Muhammad brought ''things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.''

Whether he wanted it or not, the speech - and the ensuing controversy - have made the Pope Christendom's point man in what is shaping up to be the defining issue of the 21st century: Western-Muslim relations.

The tensions haven't dampened Benedict's voice or actions. At the Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica last month, the Pope personally baptized Magdi Allam, an outspoken critic of Muslim extremism and Islam itself, and welcomed him into the Catholic Church. The very public conversion did not go unnoticed by Muslims and Catholics involved in dialogue.

Signs of renewed communication have cropped up among the setbacks. Benedict prayed silently at Istanbul's Blue Mosque during a trip to Turkey not long after the Regensburg uproar, and he is scheduled to meet in November with the Muslim scholars who initiated a Christian-Muslim dialogue last year. His U.S. visit includes a meeting with about 200 leaders of other faiths in Washington.

''The important thing is that the dialogue and relations are moving forward,'' said John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. ''But it would be an exaggeration not to say there haven't been some significant hiccups along the way.''




Trip to define a papacy:
Pope Benedict XVI's era
already has surprised many
By CATHY LYNN GROSSMAN
Gannett News Service
April 12, 2008


When Shepherd One lands outside Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, the jet carrying Pope Benedict XVI to a six-day visit in the United States will deliver a complex and surprising man.

His image is cast in a stern adherence to orthodoxy. He has been true to that, but his first three years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church also suggest he is not exactly the harsh disciplinarian some fans had hoped for - or many critics had feared.

One thing hasn't been a surprise: Benedict, shy and scholarly, has not shown the public relations acumen of his predecessor, John Paul II, who radiated such charisma that not everyone saw his steely inflexibility on theology and traditions.

John Paul, Pope for 26 years, outlived the Nazis who overran his native Poland, survived an assassination attempt, and stood up to Soviet communism and Cuba's Fidel Castro. An actor in his youth and just 58 when elected Pope, John Paul was a master of grand gestures.

Benedict is decidedly not. That's partly why his first visit to America as Pope is a challenge to the Bavarian theologian, whose deeply researched academic speeches haven't always played well in a sound-bite world. One quote, yanked out of context in a speech in his native Germany in September 2006, set off violent protests among Muslims worldwide.

He sometimes seems culturally "tone-deaf," as if he were still speaking just to the Vatican hierarchy as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, says National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen, whose first book on Ratzinger was subtitled The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith. Benedict was head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years.

His visit here could help erase that harsh image - or cement it.

Benedict, the oldest Pope elected in three centuries, will turn 81 on April 16 during his U.S. visit. He arrives as Catholics face empty churches and lost clout in Europe, the American church tries to recover from a clergy sex abuse scandal and Islam has overtaken Catholicism as the world's largest religion.

He has made clear he wants to continue the strict doctrines of John Paul, who muzzled theologians he thought blurred the lines between Catholicism and politics, opposed the use of condoms to fight AIDS, refused to reconsider the tradition of priestly celibacy and dismissed out of hand the notion that women be allowed to become priests.

Benedict's admirers hope people will come to see him as they do: kind, warm, intellectually open and engaging.

"The Pope I have seen for the past three years is the Joseph Ratzinger I have known for 20 - a holy and brilliant priest who knows who he is, a master teacher with remarkable skill in explaining complex Christian doctrines and a quite winsome public personality," says George Weigel, a theologian and author on Catholic issues.

Benedict's visit is timed to a speech at the United Nations and to mark the 200th anniversary of Baltimore becoming an archdiocese and the creation of the dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Bardstown, Ky.

On the trip, he will address the nation's 67 million Catholics and the world, but he will stop only in Washington, D.C., and New York.

Notably omitted: Boston, the epicenter of the nationwide clergy sexual abuse scandal, in which 5,000 clergy members have been accused of abusing 12,000 children and teens.

The scandal has cost nearly $2 billion in settlements and legal fees and driven five dioceses into bankruptcy. Papal ambassador Pietro Sambi says Benedict will address the scandal "more than once."

'We will see Peter'

The Pope will meet with President Bush at the White House, pray at the World Trade Center site and celebrate Mass in Washington's new Nationals Park and New York's Yankee Stadium.

"When he steps off the plane, we will see Peter," the apostle whom Jesus told to "build my church, feed my sheep," says Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl. "He's coming to inspire, to affirm and to teach. He's not coming to scold us."

To the laity and clergy, Benedict will promote authentic Catholic identity: more than going to Mass, it is understanding and fully living by Catholic values. To politicians and religious leaders, he'll emphasize the common ground in natural moral law that rests in reason.

And to all, he'll denounce "moral relativism," which "does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

Office of the Press Secretary
April 11, 2008


Event Backgrounder:
The Visit of His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI to the White House


The President and Mrs. Bush will welcome His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to our Nation’s Capital on April 15-18, 2008. This is the first visit of His Holiness to the United States since he became Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI is only the second Pontiff to visit The White House. His Holiness Pope John Paul II was welcomed to The White House by President Jimmy Carter on October 6, 1979.

On April 15, 2008, the President and Mrs. Bush will participate in an Arrival Ceremony for His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

On April 16, 2008, the President and Mrs. Bush will welcome His Holiness to The White House in an Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn followed by a meeting between the President and His Holiness in the Oval Office.

Later that evening, the President and Mrs. Bush will host a dinner for Catholic leaders and friends in Honor of the Visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in the East Room of The White House.


SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Arrival Ceremony
for His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Andrews Air Force Base

April 15, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. EDT

The President and Mrs. Bush arrive at Andrews Air Force Base and participate in an Arrival Ceremony (OPEN PRESS).

The President and Mrs. Bush participate in a Greeting with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI (CLOSED PRESS).


South Lawn Arrival Ceremony
for His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
South Lawn, The White House

April 16, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. EDT

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI arrives on the South Lawn and is greeted by the President and Mrs. Bush.

The President introduces His Holiness to U.S. Delegation members including the Vice President, Mrs. Lynne Cheney, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.

The Marine Band performs the National Anthem of the Holy See. There will be a simultaneous 21-gun salute followed by the playing of the National Anthem of the United States of America.

Kathleen Battle performs “The Lord’s Prayer.”

The President delivers remarks.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI delivers remarks.

U.S. Army Chorus performs “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Following the ceremony, the President and His Holiness walk along the Rose Garden Colonnade to the Oval Office (POOL COVERAGE).

The President meets
with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Oval Office, The White House

April 16, 2008 at 11:15 a.m. EDT

The President and His Holiness participate in a Meeting in the Oval Office.

At 12:05 p.m., His Holiness departs the South Lawn aboard the Popemobile and heads west on Pennsylvania Avenue.


IMPORTANT FACTS

The President and His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI first met at the Vatican on June 9, 2007.

Mrs. Bush and His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI previously met at the Vatican on February 9, 2006 and June 9, 2007.

There will be between 9,000-12,000 visitors on The White House South Lawn to welcome His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Guests will include Catholic clergy, ecumenical representatives, local Catholic school children, and members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Sisters of the Poor and the Knights of Columbus.

Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate his 81st birthday on April 16, 2008.

'Oremus pro conversione Judæorum':
Cardinal Kasper takes the field

The President of the Pontifical Commission for Relations with Judaism replies to those who reject prayers
for the conversion of the Jews:
"The when and how of the salvation of Israel must be left in the hands of God"

by Sandro Magister



ROMA, April 12, 2008 – The protests of some Jews, and also of some Christians, over the new prayer introduced by Benedict XVI into the liturgy of Good Friday according to the ancient rite have met with a new and authoritative response from the Vatican: that of cardinal Walter Kasper.

Kasper is President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, and of the Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism.

Before him, the Vatican authorities who spoke out in defense of the prayer included Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, with a commentary in "L'Osservatore Romano" on February 15, and also the secretariat of state, with a statement on April 4.

['Before him' is not correct. Cardinal Kasper was the very first Vatican official - and rightly - to comment on the new prayer on Feb. 7, the day it was first published in Osservatore Romano, in interviews given to Vatican Radio and Corriere della Sera. It's just that most of the media, Magister included apparently, failed to take note of that! Kasper's first and concise explanation was precisely the theological basis that he explains more amply in his article originally written for Frankfuerter Allgemeine Zeitung and published March 20, Maundy Thursday, under the title "How and when is up to God" referring to the eschatological conversion prayed for.]

Among the Jews as well there were some who spoke out in defense of the new prayer: for example, the American rabbi Jacob Neusner, with an article on February 23 in the German newspaper Die Tagespost.

But the controversy has not died out. Just a few days ago, a new criticism was made by an important representative of Judaism, the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni.

As a helpful reminder, the new formula of the prayer for the Jews introduced last February 6 by Benedict XVI in to the ancient rite of Good Friday opens with this invitation:

"May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men."

And it continues with this prayer :

"Almighty and everlasting God, you who want all men to be saved and to reach the awareness of the truth, graciously grant that, with the fullness of peoples entering into your Church, all Israel may be saved."

What some Jews see as intolerable is that the Catholic Church should pray for the conversion of Israel to faith in Jesus Christ.

[Magister then posts a translation of Cardinal Kasper's March 20 article for FAZ which was published in Italian by OR, with a few modifications, on April 10. I posted my translation from the German on this thread on April 1. The OR version is also notable because it contains footnotes.]

---

The discussion of the recent modifications
of the prayer for the Jews for Good Friday

by Walter Kasper


The prayer for the Jews for Good Friday has a long history. Pope Benedict XVI was opportune, because some of the formulations were considered offensive on the Jewish side, and distasteful even on the part of various Catholics. The new formulation has brought important improvements to the text of 1962. But it has also prompted new reactions of irritation, raising questions of principle among both Jews and some Christians (1).

The reactions shown on the Jewish side are to a great extent motivated in an emotional, rather than rational, way. But they must not be dismissed hastily as being caused by hypersensitivity. Among our Jewish friends who for decades have been involved in an intense dialogue with Christians, the collective memory of forced catechesis and conversion is still alive. The memory of the Holocaust is for modern-day Judaism a traumatic characteristic of identity that creates communion. Many Jews consider the mission to the Jews as a threat to their existence, sometimes even speaking of a Holocaust by other means. So great sensitivity is still necessary in the Jewish-Christian relationship.

In the meantime, the explanations given of the reformulated prayer for Good Friday have been able to eliminate the most glaring errors.

The very fact that the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1970 – and therefore in the ordinary form of the Roman rite, used in the vast majority of cases – remains fully in effect, demonstrates that the reformulated prayer for Good Friday, used by only an extremely small part of the community, cannot signify a step backward with respect to the declaration "Nostra Aetate" of Vatican Council II.

This is all the more true by virtue of the fact that the substance of the declaration "Nostra Aetate" is also contained in a document belonging to a higher formal level, the constitution on the Church "Lumen Gentium" (no. 16), and for this reason, in principle, it cannot be brought into question.

Furthermore, since the council there have been a great number of direct pontifical statements, including some by the current pope, referring to "Nostra Aetate" and confirming the importance of this declaration.

Unlike the 1970 text, the new formulation of the 1962 text speaks of Jesus as the Christ and as the salvation of all men, and therefore also of the Jews.

Many have understood this affirmation as new and unfriendly toward the Jews. But this is founded on the New Testament as a whole (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4), and indicates the fundamental difference, known everywhere, that endures for both the Christians and the Jews. Even if it is not explicitly mentioned in "Nostra Aetate," nor in the prayer of 1970 , "Nostra Aetate" cannot be removed from the context of all the other conciliar documents, nor can the Good Friday prayer of the Missal of 1970 be removed from the entirety of the liturgy of Good Friday that has as its object that conviction of the Christian faith.

The new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1962, therefore, does not really say anything new, but only expresses what until now was taken as obvious, but which evidently, in many dialogues, was not sufficiently explained (2).

In the past, faith in Christ, which distinguishes Christians from Jews, has often been transformed into a "language of disdain" (Jules Isaac), with all of the serious consequences that derive from this. If today we are striving for reciprocal respect, this can be founded only on the fact that we reciprocally recognize our diversity. For this reason, we do not expect that the Jews should agree on the Christological content of the prayer for Good Friday, but that they should respect the fact that we pray as Christians according to our faith, as naturally we do also in regard to their way of praying. In this perspective, both sides still have something to learn.

The real controversial question is: should Christians pray for the conversion of the Jews? Can there be a mission to the Jews?

The word conversion is not found in the reformulated prayer. But it is indirectly included in the invocation to enlighten the Jews, so that they may recognize Jesus Christ. Moreover, there is the fact that the Missal of 1962 gives titles for each of the individual prayers. The title of the prayer to the Jews has not been modified; it sounds like it did before: "Pro conversione Judæorum," for the conversion of the Jews. Many Jews have read the new formulation in the perspective of this title, and this has raised the reaction already described.

In response to this, it can be noted that the Catholic Church, unlike some "evangelical" groups, does not have an organized, institutionalized mission to the Jews. With this reminder, however, the problem of the mission to the Jews has not, in fact, been clarified theologically yet. This is precisely the merit of the new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday, which, in its second part, presents an initial indication for a substantial theological response.

We pick up again from Chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans, which is fundamental also for "Nostra Aetate" (3).

The salvation of the Jews is, for Paul, a profound mystery of election through divine grace (9:14-29). God gives without regret, and the promises that God makes to his people, in spite of their disobedience, have not been revoked (9:6; 11:1.29). The hardening of Israel's heart produces salvation for the pagans. The wild branches of the pagans have been grafted onto the holy root of Israel (11:16ff.). But God has the power to graft on again the branches that were cut off (11:23). When the fullness of the pagans have found salvation, then all Israel will be saved (11:25ff.). Israel therefore remains the bearer of the promise and of the blessing.

Paul speaks, in apocalyptic language, of a mystery (11:25). By this he means to express something more than the fact that the Jews are often an enigma for the other peoples, and that their existence is still for others a witness to God. With the term "mystery," Paul means the eternal salvific will of God, which is manifested in history through the preaching of the Apostle. He refers concretely to Isaiah 59:20 and Jeremiah 31:33. By this he refers to the eschatological gathering of the peoples in Zion, promised by the prophets and by Jesus, and to the universal peace (shalom) that will then arise (4).

Paul sees his entire missionary work among the pagans in this eschatological perspective. His mission should be that of preparing the gathering of the peoples, which, then, when the full number of the pagans have entered, will bring salvation for Israel and eschatological peace for the world.

It can therefore be said: it is not on account of the mission to the Jews, but following the mission to the pagans that God will realize the salvation of Israel in the end, when the full number of pagans have found salvation. Only He who hardened the hearts of most of Israel can soften them again. He will do this when "the liberator" comes from Zion (11:26). This liberator, according to Pauline language (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:10), is none other than Christ at his return. Jews and pagans, in fact, have the same Lord (10:12) (5).

The reformulated prayer for Good Friday expresses this hope in a prayer of intercession addressed to God (6). With this prayer, the Church repeats, in essence, the invocation of the Our Father "Your kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2) and the proto-Christian liturgical acclamation "Maranà tha": Come, Lord Jesus, come soon (1 Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 22:20; Didachè 10:6).

Such prayers for the coming of the Kingdom of God and for the realization of the mystery of salvation, according to their nature, are not an appeal addressed to the Church asking it to carry out missionary activity toward the Jews. Instead, they respect all of the unfathomable depth of the "Deus absconditus," of His election through grace, of the hardening of the heart as of His infinite mercy.

With its prayer, the Church, therefore, does not assume control of the realization of the inscrutable mystery. It cannot do so in any way. But rather, it leaves all of the "when" and the "how" of this realization in the hands of God. Only God can bring about His Kingdom, in which all Israel will be saved and eschatological peace will come to the world.

To support this interpretation, one can refer to a text by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, which says that it is not up to us to concern ourselves about the Jews, but belongs to God himself (7). How correct this interpretation is also emerges from the doxology that concludes chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!" (11:33). This doxology once again shows that this is a matter of the worshipful glorification of God and of his inscrutable election through grace, and not an appeal to any sort of action, including mission.

The exclusion of a targeted and institutionalized mission to the Jews does not mean that Christians must stand around with their hands in their pockets. Targeted and organized mission on one side, and Christian witness on the other, must be distinguished. Naturally, Christians must, where it is opportune, give to their older brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham (John Paul II) a witness of their own faith and of the richness and beauty of their faith in Christ. Paul did this as well. During his missionary journeys, Paul always went first to the synagogue, and only when he did not find faith there did he go to the pagans (Acts of the Apostles, 13:5,14ff., 42-52; 14:1-6 and others; Romans 1:16 is fundamental).

Such a witness is also asked of us today. It must of course be done with tact and respect; but it would be dishonest if Christians, in meeting with their Jewish friends, should remain silent about their own faith, or even deny it.

We expect just as much from believing Jews toward us. In the dialogues that I have known, this attitude is entirely normal. A sincere dialogue between Jews and Christians, in fact, is possible only, on the one hand, on the basis of a shared faith in one God, creator of heaven and earth, and in the promises made to Abraham and to the Fathers; and on the other, in the awareness and respect of the fundamental difference that consists in faith in Jesus as Christ and Redeemer of all men.

The widespread incomprehension of the reformulated prayer for Good Friday is a sign of how great the task is that still lies before us in Jewish-Christian dialogue. The reactions of irritation that have arisen should, therefore, be an opportunity for clarifying and further deepening the foundations and objectives of Jewish-Christian dialogue. If a deepening of dialogue could be begun in this way, the agitation that has arisen would lead to a truly positive result in the end. One must certainly always be aware that dialogue between Jews and Christians will remain, by its nature, always difficult and fragile, and that it demands a great degree of sensitivity on both sides.

NOTES

(1) A summary of the first reactions for and against can be found in "Il Regno" no. 1029, 2008, 89-91. In addition to such initial reactions in the mass media, the Vatican commission for religious relations with Judaism received a series of detailed and substantiated position statements, coming above all from the United States of America, from Germany and, and from Italy, including among others that of R. Di Segni, "La preghiera per gli ebrei," in "Shalom" 2008, no. 3, 4-7.

(2) This does not apply to the International Jewish-Christian dialogue in which this question arose after the declaration "Dominus Iesus" (2000). The commission for religious relations with Judaism has kept this in consideration, and for this purpose has organized talks by experts in Ariccia (Italy), Louvain (Belgium), and Frankfurt (Germany); the next talk has long been scheduled for Notre Dame (Indiana, United States of America).

(3) As for the interpretation, I refer above all to the extensive commentary, which also contains a great deal of material for our question, by Thomas Aquinas, "Super ad Romanos," chapter 11, lectio 1-5. More recent commentaries: E. Peterson, "Der Brief an die Römer" (Ausgewählte Schriften, 6), Würzburg, 1997, 312-330, specialmente 323; E. Käsemann, "An die Römer" (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, 8a), Tübingen 1973, 298-308; H. Schlier, "Der Römerbrief" (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, 6), Freiburg i. Br., 1997, 320-350, esp. 337-341; O. Kuss, "Der Römerbrief," 3. Lieferung, Regensburg, 1978, 809-825; U. Wilckens, "Der Brief an die Römer" (EKK, VI/2), Zürich-Neukirchen, 1980, 234-274, esp. 252-257. One fundamental document is from the Pontifical Biblical Commissione, "Il popolo ebraico e le sue Sacre Scritture nella Bibbia cristiana" (2001). Furthermore: F. Mussner, "Traktat über die Juden," München, 1979, 52-67; J. Ratzinger, "La Chiesa, Israele e le religioni del mondo," Torino, 2000; J. M. Lustiger, "La promesse," Paris, 2002; W. Kasper, "L'antica e la nuova alleanza nel dialogo ebraico-cristiano," in "Nessuno è perduto. Comunione, dialogo ecumenico, evangelizzazione," Bologna 2005, 95-119. To this is added a great quantity of more recent literature, most of it in English, on the questions of Jewish-Christian dialogue.

(4) Important passages include Isaiah 2:2-5; 49:9-13; 60; Micah 4:1-3, and others. In this regard, see: J. Jeremias, "Jesu Verheißung für die Völker", Göttingen 1959.

(5) This brings up the most fundamental theological question in the current Jewish-Christian dialogue: is there only one covenant, or are there two parallel covenants for Jews and Christians? This question concerns the universality of salvation, which from a Christian point of view is undeniable, in Jesus Christ. See the synthesis of the most ancient literature in J. T. Pawlikowski, "Judentum und Christentum", in "Theologische Realenzyklopädie", 18 (1988), 386-403; Pawlikowski, because of my contributions and those of others, developed his position in essential fashion and referred extensively to the current state of the discussion in "Reflections on Covenant and Mission" in: "Themes in Jewish-Christian Relations," E. Kessler and M. J. Wreight (eds.), Cambridge (England), 2005, 273-299.

(6) The prayer has modified this text to the extent that it speaks of the entry of the pagans "into the Church," which is not found expressed in this way in Paul. From this, some Jewish critics have concluded that the issue is the entry of Israel into the Church, which the prayer does not say. In the sense of the apostle Paul, one should instead say that the salvation of most of the Jews is communicated through Christ, but not through their entry into the Church. At the end of days, when the Kingdom of God is realized definitively, there will no longer be a visible Church. So what is referred to is the fact that at the end of days, the one People of God, made up of Jews and of pagans who have become believers, will once again be united and reconciled.

(7) Bernard of Clairvaux, "De consideratione," III, 1, 3. Also in this regard: "Sermones super Cantica Canticorum," 79, 5.

---

I completely missed this when it first came out!

FINALLY, A CLARIFICATION
ABOUT THE POPE'S PASTORAL STAFF
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service


VATICAN CITY, April 10 (CNS) -- When Pope Benedict XVI processes to the altars where he will celebrate Mass in Washington and New York, he will be carrying the pastoral staff of Blessed Pope Pius IX.

Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, told Catholic News Service that the 19th-century pastoral staff, topped with a cross instead of a crucifix, "is becoming the usual one for papal celebrations."

On Palm Sunday, March 16, Pope Benedict started carrying the older staff, which was used by every Pope from Blessed Pope Pius IX to Pope Paul VI.



i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii232/TERESA7_album/0316-PALMSUND...

"This is the typical staff used by the Popes because it is a cross without a crucifix," Msgr. Marini said April 10.

It is taking the place of the staff with the rugged crucifix on top that was created by Italian artist Lello Scorzelli for Pope Paul in the mid-1960s. The Vatican's yearbook, "Activity of the Holy See," includes a photograph of Pope Paul holding the Scorzelli staff on Easter 1965.

But the piece has become closely identified with the pontificate of Pope John Paul II and is placed alongside a photograph of him in the renewed "Vatican Splendors" exhibit currently touring the United States.

Msgr. Marini said there actually are two copies of the Scorzelli staff: the one in the exhibit, open in St. Petersburg, Fla., through May 11, and "the other which is here in the pontifical sacristy."

The Scorzelli crucifix remains the model for the crucifix on the rosaries Pope Benedict gives to his guests.

The articles below were both posted on CNS"s FAITH ALIVE series on 3/31/08.

The extraordinary attention
accorded Pope Benedict XVI
By Joseph F. Kelly
Catholic News Service



Popular media have focused unrelentingly on Pope Benedict XVI, parsing his every word, jumping on his every sentence -- all this to a man who personally shuns publicity and would have preferred a quiet life, retiring in his 80s to his home in Germany.

Three times during his years in the Vatican, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger offered his resignation to Pope John Paul II, who refused to accept it.

Pope Benedict's coat of arms does not include the traditional tiara, just a simple bishop's miter. He is a true intellectual who makes his points in scholarly arguments rather than in the "sound bites" so beloved by secular media.

Why, then, the excessive attention to this unassuming man?

The reasons are legion, but here I suggest three. First, and most simply, the Pope is a world leader, so there is no way the media cannot focus on him.

But so excessively?

The second reason is his predecessor. Pope John Paul II, who became pope at 58, determined to make the papacy a force in the world. He traveled indefatigably, and his many trips gathered media attention. He had a gift for the grand gesture.

For example, when Pope John Paul II announced a new saint, he would do so during a visit to the saint's homeland, a striking compliment that guaranteed local Catholics would turn out in enormous numbers.

Even during his funeral, television commentators compared Pope John Paul II's popularity with young people to that of a rock star (perhaps not the most felicitous comparison).

So for over 27 years the media have become accustomed to a Pope who attracted widespread attention. Naturally the media apply the same standards to Pope Benedict, who has chosen to work quietly, to do things that do not gain publicity and sometimes even work against it.

For example, the Vatican recently announced that standards for recognizing saints and elevating sainthood candidates to "blessed" will be tightened up. As such, there could be fewer massive crowds cheering on the local favorite.

Pope Benedict continues a longstanding papal tradition of hard work and careful administration that makes a real difference but not in a way that many people would notice. Thus, to say things about Pope Benedict XVI, the media must endlessly investigate everything he says, finding "news" in the smallest items.

A third reason for the unrelenting attention is poorly veiled hostility.

Pope Benedict XVI has cited relativism as a threat not just to the church but to civilization. Relativism contends that there are no core values, nothing that is intrinsically right or wrong; rather, everything depends on how a person looks at it. Those who do take a stand are often labeled defensive or prejudiced.

The media often point out that the Pope served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Holy Office, the former Inquisition, etc. This, of course, is meant to imply that the pope opposes freedom of expression and that his "oppressive tendencies" led to his "insulting" Islam.

Sadly, I suspect that much of the attention given to the Pope is a search for his supposed flaws, not an appreciation of the man or his work.

Some years ago I wrote a biographical article about Pope St. Celestine I (422-432), a decidedly uncharismatic man who labored unremittingly for a decade.

He dealt with missions to areas of the Roman Empire overrun by barbarians, with North African bishops who resented papal authority and with an emperor in Constantinople who wanted to run the church. Few people have heard of him, but he was a great Pope.

May God help his current quiet, efficient successor to be great in service too.

(Kelly chairs the Department of Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland.)



The papacy and the media:
Opportunities and challenges
By Jem Sullivan
Catholic News Service




When Pope Benedict XVI arrives in America in mid-April, visiting Washington and New York, the media will shine a bright spotlight on his every word and action.

Will this intense media attention shape a better understanding of the papacy today and its present challenges? Or will it allow only superficial insights into the unique spiritual role of the pope and his message to the world?

When Pope Benedict arrives in the United States, he will come not only as a head of state but as the spiritual head of the Catholic Church, a worldwide community of followers of Jesus Christ. And because of his unique role as the successor of St. Peter and his distinct mission of witnessing to the Gospel of Christ, his words and actions inevitably will draw instant commentary and judgment.

We live in the Age of Information. With a click of a button we can access vast amounts of information on the Internet, on multiple television channels and through various other electronic means. News cycles get shorter and shorter, and to convey vast amounts of news, commentary and public opinion, the media often present information in quick sound bites.

Advertising on television and the Internet markets products with such speed that viewers may not be fully aware of the hundreds of images coming at them in a 30-second commercial, for example.

To keep up with this rapid flow of information, people "speed read," skimming headlines of newspapers or online news services. They take in vast amounts of information but are left with little time to digest the deeper meaning of events, words and opinions.

How does the Age of Information affect the way Catholics and the world view the papacy? Could it be that Catholics know far more about the latest celebrity gossip than about the recent writings or teachings of the Pope? Is our capacity for sustained reflection and contemplation on matters of faith weakened?

The impact of greater media attention on the papacy has been a mixed blessing for the Catholic Church. On the one hand, more people now have insight into the pope's role, his teachings, travels and personality.

The historic funeral Mass of Pope John Paul II, broadcast to every corner of the globe, was among the most watched media events in human history.

On the other hand, there is popular expectation that the Pope and the Catholic Church should move at the same rapid pace as the world of information and media technology.

But the Church is an age-old institution built on 2,000 years of tradition and fidelity to the Gospel. While the Church seeks to update its public image, it must, of necessity, remain faithful to Christ, to its traditions and its spiritual heritage, and not be distracted by charges that it is an institution that lives behind the times, a relic of past centuries striving to keep pace with the modern world.

Among the many challenges of today's papacy then is to speak the timeless message of the Gospel into the crowded global marketplace of ideas and information.

This, of course, is not a new challenge. Every generation of Christians has faced the task of proclaiming the Gospel in its own time and place. As chief shepherd of the church and representative of Christ, the Pope is uniquely charged with this countercultural witness to the Gospel in our times.

All things considered, heightened means of mass communication provide both opportunities and challenges for the papacy today.

In the past, the Pope's words, spoken and in print, were not as readily accessible as they are today. With virtual and real-time media coverage of papal events, we have a more personalized image of the Pope as he travels the world, delivers a message in St. Peter's Square or blesses large crowds of the faithful gathered everywhere to hear him.

With more personalized and readily available images of the papacy, it is much easier for Catholics today to access the pastoral, theological and spiritual wisdom of the Pope who brings the love of Christ himself to the fast-paced world of today.

(Sullivan teaches in the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington. She is a writer, speaker and catechetical consultant, and serves as a docent at the National Gallery of Art.)

The New York Times has posted its story on the Pope for tomorrow's issue (Sunday), along with the two pictures it chose to illustrate the article. It's a surprisingly positive piece, given how the Times has reported on the Pope in the past. One must be grateful for this, and pray that it sets the pitch for the coverage of the papal trip in general by the Times and other MSM.


Hard-Liner With Soft Touch
Reaches Out to U.S. Flock
By IAN FISHER and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: April 13, 2008





ROME — Americans often tuck their leaders into tidy boxes of conservative or liberal, charismatic or dull, nice or not.

When Pope Benedict XVI arrives on Tuesday to visit America and its Church, the overall experience may be one of watching easy categories melt away.

His reputation over many years is as a man of doctrinal hardness, who condemns homosexuality and abortion, who regards Catholicism as the only true faith — positions at times difficult to digest in a diverse America. This reputation, for admirers and detractors alike, is well-earned.

But it is only one part of the man. Benedict’s manner is mild and humble, his often brilliantly crafted words delivered in a soft voice (and a strong German accent in English, one of his 10 languages). During his five days in the United States he is not expected to scold.

“What he will not do is wag fingers,” said Brennan Pursell, an associate history professor at DeSales University in Allentown, Pa., and author of a new book on the pope, Benedict of Bavaria (Circle Press). “He will present what the church offers.”

Vatican officials seem concerned enough about Benedict’s image that they are billing this trip as a proper introduction to Americans, intended in part to shed, as Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio to the United States, said, the idea that he is “this tough, this inhuman person.”

Benedict will almost certainly address an issue important to many Catholics, the sex-abuse scandals that racked the church and are now costing it millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements with victims.

His speech at the United Nations on Friday is the centerpiece of the visit, and he is expected to speak out strongly on the importance of human rights and, possibly, to urge the world not to use only the military in solving security problems.

Last Sunday, the Vatican seemed to signal its desire to present a fuller, possibly softer, picture of Benedict and his papacy on the eve of his American trip.

Even while repeating the church’s condemnation of abortion and divorce, the Pope emphasized the need for compassion — “salve in the wounds,” he said — for people who have gone through either. [The Pope was addressing an international congress sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family on the theme of divorce and abortion as plagues of society.]

“In this debate, often purely ideological, a kind of conspiracy of silence is created around them,” he said. “Only with an attitude of selfless love can we come closer to bring help and to allow the victims to recover and return to the road of existence.”

While Benedict is a hero to many American conservatives — an affection he seems largely to return — he is, by no means, an American-style conservative. The Pope opposes the war in Iraq, raises piercing questions about capitalism, is against the death penalty and strongly defends immigrants and the poor.

None of this implies that Benedict, who turns 81 on Wednesday, is a wishy-washy man of the middle. In more than two decades as John Paul II’s defender of the faith, he was the driving force in defining the church’s core principles, reining in what he saw as the excesses of the liberalization of a generation ago and instilling a strong and unafraid conservative Catholic identity.

As Pope now for three years, those principles are spelled out clearly in two encyclicals, one on love, the other on hope. He also reached out to the church’s traditionalist wing by easing restrictions on using the old Latin Mass.

More broadly, he ordered a crackdown on homosexuality in seminaries, while forcing the retirement of the head of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative order of priests, after a long sex-abuse investigation. He worked to open formal relations with China, as he has improved relations with Orthodox Christians, split from the Roman Catholic Church for a millennium.

But Benedict’s legacy may be less in concrete action than the power of his ideas and how they may take seed over time. Perhaps most important is his vigorous advocacy of a church of the most devout — the better, he believes, to withstand the threats of secular culture.

More liberal Catholics, and that includes many Americans, may find their seat at that table missing.

“I like the line that good morals, like good art, begin by drawing a line,” said Cardinal John P. Foley, an American who served for years as the Vatican’s chief of communications.

Benedict, he said, “is more classical art than expressionism,” adding, “He is not the Jackson Pollock of the ecclesiastical world.”


Benedict in Auschwitz, May 2006.

But he may prove a surprise to many Americans, even if they may not feel the same emotional connection that John Paul II often evoked.

This Pope plays on the field of clear, forcefully expressed thought that often angers but also often disarms even his harshest detractors.

“He engages with Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, with all the great skeptics, and states their arguments so well you know he has really immersed himself,” said Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard professor who is the American ambassador to the Vatican.

“What Americans are going to find is that this is someone who doesn’t talk down to them, who treats them like adults and who understands that modern men and women are struggling with life’s very hard questions and that there are not easy or simple answers to them,” Ms. Glendon said.

Benedict’s critics are not so generous. Many admire his words and a demeanor like an elderly professor still ready for a friendly debate. But critics say that Benedict has made up his mind before any such debate begins — and that the conclusion inevitably falls more on the side of doctrinal purity than how Catholics live their lives. Even those who value his capacities as an evangelist are uneasy with his priorities.

“Doctrinal purity would not be high on the list of 95 percent of U.S. Catholics,” said Sister Christine Schenck, executive director of FutureChurch, a coalition of Catholics who want the church to be more open to change. [The problem is that the changes they want would make the Church no longer the Church! And yes, Ms. Schenk, a religion needs doctrinal purity, whatever yop]

Rather, she said, American Catholics worry: “Is my parish going to stay open? Another is, ‘What about my adult children, for whom religion doesn’t mean anything?’ I’ve had parents tell me, ‘My child had 14 years of Catholic education and the Church doesn’t connect with them.’" [You know that's only one side of the story, Ms. Schenck! What about all the parents who are thankful there are Catholic schools that not only provide their children with a higher standard of genral education than public schools but also 'form them in the faith'?]

Sister Schenk’s coalition promotes a more progressive interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, the meetings in the early 1960s that passed many reforms intended to update the church.

[Sister Schenk's coalition very simply set themselves up as 'the alternative Church', which is a contradiction in terms. You are either in the Church - which includes 'sentire cum ecclesia' - or out of it, as Schenk and her fellow dissidents would do well to consider. In what way, effectively, are they any more Catholic than most Protestant sects? In terms of positions on their pet liberal causes, the conservative Episcopal sects are more 'Catholic' than they are.]

Critics say that Benedict — who as a young German priest named Joseph Ratzinger was a relatively liberal force in those deliberations — has flattened those reforms in many ways. He and his supporters reject that view.

Difficult for many Americans is his regular insistence on the truth of Catholicism and that it is the only “true” church — claims that critics, and even some supporters, say are essential to believe but not necessarily to say too often if good relations with other Christians and faiths are also important.

“It smacks of the Old Church triumphalism that preceded Vatican II,” said Robert Mickens, a Vatican expert for the liberal English Catholic magazine The Tablet. [An 'expert' with a closed mind, for he insist on seeing only what he wants to see, or only through his extremely liberal prism.]

The Pope implies, Mr. Mickens said: “We’ve got the truth. We don’t need to have dialogue with people. We need to proclaim our truth.” [[But Mr. Mickens, can you hear yourself? That is exactly what faith means! What kind of faith would proclaim it does not have the truth? And how can proclaiming one's faith be considered triumphalism? Such is the very nature of religious faith.]

Conservative Catholics, those who are clearly the most energized by Benedict’s visit, say that such objective belief is crucial and does not rule out dialogue: On this trip, which will include a visit to the White House and to ground zero in Manhattan, he will meet with other Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Muslims — a group he has had specific troubles with since he quoted two years ago a medieval Byzantine emperor who called aspects of Islam “evil and inhuman.”

That speech is often the first piece of evidence in another criticism of Benedict: that he seems prone to saying things that he must later retract or clarify.

In the case of the Islam speech, he issued several correctives after violence burst out in parts of the Muslim world. But he has also had to restate himself on other issues, including on abortion and politics in Mexico; a statement that native populations in Brazil had been “silently longing” for Christian missionaries to arrive; on a rewording of a Good Friday prayer in Latin that offended many Jewish groups.

Beyond the heated debates about him among Catholics, Benedict’s words are likely to resonate well with Americans generally because he clearly likes the United States — and will say so. He has always had American top advisers. His old job as defender of the faith is now held by the American cardinal William Levada.

He has often spoken of his admiration for a nation where the separation of church and state allowed Catholics, at one time a downtrodden minority among a Protestant elite, to become central to national life — and the fact that, generally, America is a place, unlike increasingly secular Europe, where religion is allowed a careful place in politics.

“America has been,” Benedict said in February as he accepted Ms. Glendon’s credentials as American ambassador, “a nation which values the role of religious belief in ensuring a vibrant and ethically sound democratic order.”

Perhaps more important, America, with a religious fervor far greater than Europe, seems more receptive to one of Benedict’s central goals: ensuring that the church will survive, and even thrive, in what is often called a “post-Christian culture.”

In much of the developed world, Mass attendance has fallen steeply as religious belief is less often inherited at birth. The Church thus does not play the same broader cultural role it once did, either through the quasi-national churches in Europe or the now-diffused Catholic enclaves in America’s big cities.

The question, bitterly debated between conservative and liberal Catholics, is who is best-prepared to survive in a secular society. Over many years, Benedict’s consistent answer has been to encourage the orthodox, while ignoring more liberal Catholics. And indeed many of his strongest supporters — and those most excited about Benedict’s visit — are among the most fervent believers, many of them young.

Catholics who feel left out are more skeptical, but still may find themselves conflicted listening to and watching Benedict, with his wispy white hair and air of quiet spirituality. He has long been aware of this contradiction between his manner and what many in the church think about him. He was asked about it as far back as 1985, as his reputation as “Cardinal No” began to grow.

His answer: that any hostility toward him simply reflected that of an increasingly secular world against a religion that believes in itself. [Listen too that, Mr. Mickens!]

“If it is true that a Christian faith taken seriously means nonconformity with a not inconsiderable number of contemporary social standards, then a more-or-less negative image is unavoidable,” he said in written responses to questions posed by The New York Times that year, when he had the position as the Vatican’s defender of the faith.

“Nonconformists, after all, who enjoy general applause, are somewhat ridiculous figures, or at the least unconvincing.”

It appears Newsweek reserved its papal material for its April 21 issue (which comes out during the week of the Pope's visit), with three articles about the Pope.


A PAPAL PILGRIMAGE
Previewing Pope Benedict's American visit
By Raymond Arroyo

Apr 21, 2008 Issue


Judging from the early coverage of the Pope's upcoming U.S. visit, you'd think that Attila the Hun in red Prada shoes was about to stride onto American soil.

"He's coming to deliver a stern message," the scribblers warn. "He's cold." "A hard-liner." "A mystery."

But for those of us who have spent years watching Benedict XVI (I'm the news director for the Eternal Word Television Network), Papa Ratzinger isn't a mystery at all.

At heart, Benedict is a gentle scholar. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, is remembered for his dramatic gestures — but can you remember anything he actually said?

Benedict, by contrast, has managed to break through the cultural static entirely because of his direct, often provocative words. He's a quotable Pope, unafraid of stoking controversy and starting a conversation, as he did with his 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, when he suggested that Islam had lost its reason and the West had lost its faith.

Expect at least a few such surprises during his U.S. sojourn.

In his career as a theologian, Benedict has committed himself to reinvigorating Roman Catholic tradition and making the faith reasonable amid an unreasonable culture. It's a thread that will run through his 11 addresses this week. A broader look at what he'll likely say and do here.

April 15, 2008
Pope arrives, Washington, D.C.

April 17, 19 & 20
Masses for the Masses: The Masses at Washington's Nationals Park and New York's Yankee Stadium will provide opportunities for Benedict to confirm Roman Catholics in their faith.

Look for the Pope to mention the need for a personal encounter with the living Jesus while showcasing the sacredness of the liturgy and the beauty of the church's tradition.

Translation: don't expect dancing girls on the altar or Radiohead tunes from the choir. With apologies to Harry Connick Jr. (who'll sing in New York), these Masses won't be about entertainment. They'll be about inspiring the faithful to reform their lives and society: Benedict's unique brand of "trickle-down spirituality" in action.

April 16
The White House: April 15 will mark the first time President George W. Bush has held a tarmac greeting for a head of state; public statements will begin the following morning on the South Lawn.

Sources in Rome tell me that Benedict will laud America for its innate religiosity, generosity and commitment to personal and religious liberty.

Forget the reports that he'll criticize the war in Iraq. That's not his style. With the pre-Easter murder of Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul and the April 5 drive-by killing of an Orthodox priest in Baghdad fresh in his memory, the Pope will urge more protection for the Christian minority in Iraq.

The White House, for its part, is pulling out all the stops: hymns, a 21-gun salute, a drum-and-fife corps, thousands of guests.

Meeting With Bishops: On the afternoon of April 16, the Pope will meet with his bishops in the crypt of the National Shrine — an ironic setting, one that conjures images of the prophet Ezekiel, whom God commanded to go into a valley of dry bones and announce, "Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord … Behold I will send spirit into you, and you shall live."

Sources in Rome say that this is where the Pope will reflect on the sex-abuse crisis, which has bankrupted five dioceses and broken millions of hearts. Benedict's message in the crypt, I'm told, will be "upbeat and spiritual" but "direct."

Initially, this was planned as a private meeting among the Pope and his bishops. But cameras are now being brought in at the insistence of the Holy See.

"We want the journalists to discuss what the Pope says, not what a few bishops say the Pope said," a high-ranking Vatican official told me.

April 17
Interfaith Meeting: At a talk for 200 religious leaders at the John Paul II Cultural Center, expect Benedict to repeat his call for peace between Muslims and Catholics. Later he will become the first Pope to offer good wishes in person to Jewish leaders as they prepare for Passover. Then he'll drop by New York's Park East Synagogue on April 18. A permanent Catholic-Muslim Forum, established after his bombshell speech in Regensburg, will hold its first meeting at the Vatican in November.

Meeting With Catholic Education Leaders: If his prior speeches are a guide, the Pope will argue that academic inquiry and objective truth need not be mutually exclusive. He will surely argue for "truth in advertising" at Catholic institutions: encouraging them to act and teach in conformity with Catholic tradition. No matter what he says, expect to hear gnashing of teeth from the old guard.

April 18
United Nations: This is the primary reason for the Pope's visit. Benedict wishes to speak to the General Assembly and the world on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Look for him to make the case that human rights are best protected via fidelity to natural law.

"No law made by man can overturn that of the Creator without dramatically affecting society in its very foundation," the Pope said in 2007. Some version of this thought will likely be heard in those headphones at the U.N.

Also look for him to urge member nations to extend basic human rights to the most vulnerable, especially the unborn, disabled and poor.


======================================================================


HOW BENEDICT XVI WILL MAKE HISTORY

The master teacher who follows John Paul
is a moral leader who's begun
an unprecedented conversation with Islam.

By George Weigel



According to a title first used by Gregory the Great (590–604), the Bishop of Rome is the "Servant of the Servants of God."

The Roman Catholic Church recognizes 265 of those servants as legitimate popes. Some were historical titans; others labored in obscurity. Some were saints, including more than two dozen martyrs; others were scandalous sinners. Some were reformers whose legacy in Catholic doctrine and practice is visible today; others were complicit in corruption. Some were men of genius, both intellectual and organizational; others were mediocrities.

A few years back, a veteran Vatican bureaucrat remarked that "God has been very kind to us; we haven't had a wicked pope in 500 years." That wistful expression of gratitude suggests something of the papacy's staying power while hinting at its complex history.

Surprises
The influence and magnetism of the modern papacy are, in fact, surprises. When Leo XIII was elected in 1878 — the first Pope in 1,100 years not to control substantial territory as an internationally recognized sovereign — many thought the papacy an impotent anachronism.

Leo, however, created the modern papacy as an office of moral persuasion. John Paul II, elected precisely 100 years after Leo, turned the papal bully pulpit into something to be reckoned with in the world. John Paul was one of the key figures in the collapse of European communism; he also played a significant role in democratic transitions in Latin America and East Asia, while defending the universality of human rights and challenging the intolerant secularism of European high culture.

That many Catholics feel a deep personal connection to the Pope is another relatively new, and in some respects surprising, phenomenon.

When the first American Catholic diocese, Baltimore, was erected in 1789, few Catholics in the nascent American republic felt a personal bond with Pius VI.

Beset by anticlerical Italian revolutionaries determined to incorporate the Papal States into a unified Italy, Pius IX (1846–1878) was the first modern Pontiff who attracted popular Catholic sympathy and support. (He was also the first Pope to set foot on sovereign American soil. Having fled Rome and Garibaldi's legion in 1849, Pius visited the USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," then berthed in Gaeta harbor. Capt. John Gwinn, USN, was court-martialed for allowing the pope aboard, in tacit violation of American neutrality in Italian politics.)

The millions of Catholic immigrants who came to America between the Civil War and World War I were certainly aware of Leo XIII (who defended trade unions), Pius X (who permitted children to receive holy communion), Benedict XV (who bankrupted the Vatican helping World War I refugees and POWs) and Pius XI (a fierce critic of Nazism and communism); yet these popes were hardly popular icons.

Pius XII (1939–1958) was widely venerated, but he was a remote figure who seemed to inhabit a different plane; it was thought quite remarkable that such an ethereal personality used a telephone, a typewriter and an electric razor.

It was "Good Pope John" — now Blessed John XXIII — who sealed the bond of personal affection between the papacy and U.S. Catholics of every age and condition; when he died in June 1963 after a protracted struggle with stomach cancer, it seemed like a death in the family.

The pontificate of his successor, Paul VI (1963–1978), was riddled by bitter controversies over worship, sexual morality and church governance; when Pope Paul died at Castel Gandolfo on Aug. 15, 1978, just about everyone was ready to turn a page. Paul's immediate successor, the charming John Paul I, might have been another John XXIII but died after 33 days on the job.

Over the next 26 years, his successor evolved from "John Paul Superstar" into the first universal pastor of the age of globalization; as NBC's Brian Williams said at the time, John Paul II's April 2005 funeral was "the human event of a generation."

Tens of thousands of American Catholics have visited his tomb in the Vatican grottoes and sought his intercession since he made his final journey to what he called "the House of the Father."

Benedict XVI inherited from John Paul II a certain set of expectations about who popes are and what popes do. A less pyrotechnic personality than his predecessor, in whose pontificate he played a major intellectual role, Benedict has drawn far less media attention than John Paul (at least outside Italy).

He very much matters, however, in both the public and personal senses of popes "mattering"; one just has to look closer and deeper to discern the imprint of the shoes of this fisherman.

The Grand Strategy of Benedict XVI

Modern popes deploy a distinctive form of power: the power of moral persuasion. Its effects are sometimes difficult to recognize.

Take John Paul II's epic pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979. Cold-war historians now recognize June 2–10, 1979, as a moment on which the history of our times pivoted. By igniting a revolution of conscience that gave birth to the Solidarity movement, John Paul II accelerated the pace of events that eventually led to the demise of European communism and a radically redrawn map in Eastern Europe.

There were other actors and forces at work, to be sure; but that John Paul played a central role in the communist crackup, no serious student of the period doubts today.

In 1979, however, the effects of the moral and spiritual revolution John Paul triggered were hard for some to discern. On June 5, 1979, The New York Times concluded an editorial in these terms: "As much as the visit of John Paul II must re-invigorate and re-inspire the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, it does not threaten the political order of the [Polish] nation or of Eastern Europe."

What accounts for this myopia? Granted, the Polish Pope had not used the vocabulary normally associated with affairs of state: over nine days and 40-some addresses, John Paul II said not a word about politics, economics, the Polish communist regime or its masters in Moscow.

Rather, he spoke of Poland's authentic history and deeply religious culture while summoning his people to a noble project: the restoration of their true identity. The message was received by those with ears to hear, and history changed as a result. (Including John Paul II's personal history, for the Pope's success hardened the conviction in Moscow that something drastic had to be done about this meddlesome priest. The assassination attempt of May 13, 1981, followed in due course.)

Perhaps the deeper reason for missing the impact of John Paul II's "June 1979 moment" lies in the filters through which many people read history today. According to one such filter, religious and moral conviction is irrelevant to shaping the flow of contemporary history. They may give meaning to individual lives; but change history? Please. The world has outgrown that.

Or has it? The different personalities of John Paul II and Benedict XVI sometimes mask their shared (and unshakable) conviction that religious and moral ideas can redirect the course of human affairs. And that, in turn, suggests the possibility that Benedict XVI may have had his own "June 1979 moment" — a moment that was missed, or misunderstood, at the time.

That moment was the most controversial episode in Benedict XVI's pontificate: his Regensburg Lecture on faith and reason, delivered at his old German university on Sept. 12, 2006. By quoting a Byzantine emperor's sharp critique of Islam, Benedict XVI drew worldwide criticism.

Others, however, including significant personalities in the complex worlds of Islam, took the Pope's point about the dangers of faith detached from reason quite seriously. And over the ensuing 19 months, there have been potentially historic tectonic shifts going on, both within Islam and in the world of interreligious dialogue.

Benedict has received two open letters from Muslim leaders; the October 2007 letter, "An Open Word Between Us and You," proposed a new dialogue between Islam and the Vatican. That dialogue will now be conducted through a Catholic-Muslim Forum that will meet twice yearly, in Rome and in Amman, Jordan.

The forum will address two issues that Benedict XVI has insisted be the focus of conversation: religious freedom, understood as a human right that everyone can grasp by reason, and the separation of religious and political authority in the modern state.

Perhaps even more important, given his influence in Sunni Islam, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited Benedict XVI in November 2007. Subsequently, the King announced his own interfaith initiative, aimed at drawing representatives of the three monotheistic faiths into a new conversation, and negotiations between the Holy See and Saudi Arabia opened on building the first Catholic church in the kingdom. (A new Catholic church, also the first of its kind, recently opened in Doha, Qatar.)

Abdullah's voice was noticeably absent from the chorus of critics who charged Benedict XVI with "aggression" for baptizing Magdi Allam, a prominent Italian journalist and convert from Islam, in St. Peter's Basilica on March 22. That all of this has happened after Regensburg is, at the very least, suggestive.

In addition to reshaping the dialogue between Catholicism and Islam, Benedict XVI has made significant changes in the Vatican's intellectual approach to these volatile issues.

Catholic veterans of the inter-religious dialogue who did not press issues like religious freedom and reciprocity between the faiths have been replaced by scholars who believe that facing the hard questions helps support those Muslim reformers who are trying to find an authentic Islamic path to civility, tolerance and pluralism.

Thus Benedict XVI has quietly put his pontificate behind the forces of Islamic reform — and may have found a crucial ally with a Saudi king who is wrestling with Wahhabi extremism in his own domain.

The Pope is thinking in centuries here: a reformed Islam capable of living with religious and political pluralism could be an ally in the struggle against what Benedict once called the "dictatorship of relativism."

In any event, an Islam recognizing religious freedom and affirming the separation of religious and political authority would be good for Muslims who want to live in peace with their neighbors, and good for the rest of the world. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Benedict knows that, just as he knew exactly what he was doing at Regensburg. He won't see the fruits of his labors, as John Paul II saw the fruits of June 1979. He has, however, set in motion new dynamics in contemporary history, which is no small accomplishment.

The Master Teacher

Modern popes matter in spiritual microcosm as well as historical macrocosm. John Paul II touched, and changed, millions of lives.

Go to an American seminary today and ask the seminarians who their priestly role model is. Or visit a parish marriage-preparation course and see how John Paul's "Theology of the Body" is reshaping the Catholic understanding of marriage, sexuality and family life.

Graduate schools of theology are filled with students writing dissertations on the thought of John Paul II, whose intellectual impact on Catholicism will reverberate for centuries.

Benedict's personal influence on Catholics is perhaps less dramatic, but it is no less real to those who have seen or heard him personally.

Joseph Ratzinger is one of the most learned men in the world; he is also a master teacher who can unpack complex Christian doctrines in an accessible way. That helps explain why he continues to draw enormous crowds to his Wednesday general audiences, some larger than those drawn by his predecessor.

The tag line in some Roman circles is that "People came to see John Paul II; they come to hear Benedict XVI." That contrast is too sharply drawn, but Benedict's skills as a teacher have certainly touched a significant 21st-century yearning for solid religious food.

His first two encyclicals, on love and hope, were consciously framed to speak to the fears of a deeply conflicted world by reminding the world of Christianity's basic message.

Benedict's catechetical skills with children are also striking. Six months after his election, he met thousands of Italian 8- and 9-year-olds who had just made their first communion. One of them asked how Jesus could be present in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist when "I can't see him!"

To which the Pope replied, "No, we cannot see him; there are many things we do not see, but they exist and are essential … We do not see an electric current; yet we see that it exists. We can see that this microphone is working, and we see lights. We do not see the very deepest things, those that really sustain life and the world, but we can see and feel their effects … So it is with the Risen Lord: we do not see him with our eyes, but we see that wherever Jesus is, people change, they improve, there is a greater capacity for peace, for reconciliation …"

Another youngster asked why the church urged frequent confession. Benedict answered: "It's very helpful to confess with a certain regularity. It is true: our sins are always the same, but we clean our homes, our rooms, at least once a week, even if the dirt is always the same … Otherwise the dirt might not be seen, but it builds up. Something similar can be said about the soul, about me: if I never go to confession, my soul is neglected and in the end I'm always pleased with myself and no longer understand that I must work hard to improve …"

What the Pope can say so winsomely to children, he will likely say to adults during his American pilgrimage: "Look again at the basics of Catholic faith and practice. They exist for a reason. They just may satisfy the hungers of the human heart. Give them a chance."

Popes matter in ways that challenge our conventional thinking about the way the world works. Popes no longer claim the power to bring penitent princes to their knees in the snow, as Gregory VII did with Henry IV; the modern papacy deploys a greater power, the power to propose and persuade, religiously and morally. Popes matter by changing lives and changing history.

Which, as it happens, was the only power Saint Peter had.


The third article is by the magazine's Religion writer, one Lisa Miller, whio wrote a supposed 'review' of JESUS OF NAZARETH last year that showed she had not bothered to read beyond the first chapter of teh book. She makes such offensive claims in this new article that I will provide the link but not post her outrageous views here. It's the most vicious ad-hominem attack on the Holy Father that I have yet seen in MSM - it might as well have come from one of those anti-clerical sites that indulge in such bilge.

Apparently, publishing an article by George Weigel and then this one is Newsweek's idea of 'fair and balanced' because at the end of Weigel's articvle it has the line "Read a different view about Benedict XVI from Lisa Miller" and an equivalent line at the end of Miller's article.


Why This Pope Doesn’t Connect
Benedict has done little to appeal to an American flock that is in need of a serious spiritual catharsis.

www.newsweek.com/id/131837/output/print

Don't get taken in by the feel-good title. In sharp contrast to the New York Times Sunday article, this one for the Washington Post takes a stand decidedly on the side of Catholic dissenters. Her story is completely shaped by that bias.


A Puzzling, Pleasing Nation:
The Pope Will See
an Often Impertinent but Promising Flock
By Michelle Boorstein

Sunday, April 13, 2008



To Pope Benedict, experts say, the U.S. Catholic Church is a bit like an adolescent: young and unpredictable.

There are bankrupt dioceses and empty seminaries -- yet tens of thousands of laypeople are stepping into the chasm to lead their churches.

One of every 10 Americans has left the faith -- yet close to half of U.S. Catholics attend Mass at least monthly.

Tens of thousands of traditional Catholics have clamored for tickets to the Pope's Thursday Mass at Nationals Park, yet many more think he's too rigid -- or irrelevant.

But how does Benedict understand this picture?

"At the Vatican, there is an admiration for American religiosity," said Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, a theologian and a U.S. leader of Communion and Liberation, a large group of Catholics that is very close to Benedict. "But there is a question whether American religiosity is strong enough. It appears to be, from the Vatican point of view, content-free, more spiritual high and emotion than a serious question as to what is true and what is not."

American Catholics can't agree whether they're in crisis or renewal. All sides describe a community in dramatic demographic flux. Further, it is divided in key ways, including the importance of male clergy, immigration and the authority of not only Catholicism but also Christianity.

Yet to Benedict, a German scholar, America looks religiously vibrant compared with secular Europe, with U.S. politicians touting their religiosity and U.S. courts reaffirming faith's role in public life.

The fact of his visit shows the importance of the American church to the Vatican. At 80, Benedict travels infrequently; this is only his eighth foreign trip in three years as Pope. And American Catholics make up just 6 percent of the world church, a percentage that's shrinking as the number of Catholics in Africa and Asia boom.

But culturally and financially, Americans loom super-sized. For those reasons and others, Benedict experts say he views the United States as an essential battleground in what he considers the war of today's era: proving that modernity doesn't have to stamp out religious faith.

It's well-known that U.S. Catholics disagree with the Vatican on issues of sexuality, including abortion and same-sex marriage. According to recent Washington Post-ABC News surveys, 63 percent of Catholics, compared with 55 percent of all adults, believe gay couples should have access to the same legal protections as heterosexual couples. And 62 percent of Catholics, compared with 57 percent of all adults, say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Large swaths of Catholics also part ways with Benedict's teachings on immigration, the Iraq war and capital punishment.

Jose Casanova, a Georgetown University professor who specializes in religion and globalization, says there is a growing segment of American Catholics who are essentially developing their own, individualized religion, in tension with the hierarchy but vibrant and spiritual. He calls it "faithful dissent."

In a recent interview, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, was asked about American values. Young people around the world sing, dance, eat and cultivate American-ness, Sambi told the National Catholic Reporter.

But, he said, "If you look carefully at all this, you see that what America is exporting throughout the world, especially to the youth of this world, is not always the most noble and constructive qualities America has to offer."

American Catholicism is being quickly Hispanicized, which is most obviously reflected in more charismatic worship in the pews and more interest in immigration and social welfare at the polls. More than a third of American Catholic adults, and half of Catholics under 40, are Latino. The infusion of Latino Catholicism is generally seen as a huge shot in the arm to the U.S. church.

At Nationals Park, Benedict will see Catholics representing growing immigrant populations of Salvadorans, Africans and Vietnamese. He'll hear four choirs sing in 10 languages, everything from Gregorian chants to gospel and jazz.

He'll be applauded by people such as Ray Flynn, former Boston mayor and ambassador to the Vatican, who loves the idea of papal hierarchy because it means "people aren't out there freelancing, talking about their opinion of what the faith teaches. It makes us more unified."

And people such as Alex Alvarado, a 34-year-old Silver Spring waiter who is originally from El Salvador. Alvarado calls himself evangelical, and his regular congregation meets in different living rooms. When he came to this country in the 1980s, he says, " 'Catholic' meant something much more limited" -- more white.

But Benedict won't see people such as John Cecotti, a 68-year-old Bethesda management consultant who goes to Mass weekly. He respects the Pope the way he does the Dalai Lama, and he thinks that the Vatican is "a good old boys' club that needs a wake-up call" and that the church needs female and married priests.

Or Carrie Drummond, a 34-year-old animal adoption specialist from Alexandria who rarely goes to Church and "isn't a big fan of the Pope or church doctrine" but believes she understands and lives the essence of Catholicism: take care of other people.

"This Pope's idea that the Catholic faith is the one, or that other world religions don't have credibility?" she says. "Come on, we don't need to be limiting dialogue; we should be expanding it." [Lady, 'expanding dialog' does not mean ignoring the doctrine of one's faith. The Catholic religion was never intended to be a do-it-yourself discipline - Christ meant his message to be shared in community and communion, and for that, one needs rules, a basic discipline. If everyone thought as this woman does, then there would be 1.33 billion individual 'churches' instead of one Universal Church of Christ. And this journalistic ploy of accepting everything someone says uncritically is rot. At least, put up an argument to something that is so arrogant - and stupid!]

Some critics believe dialogue in the Church has been severely limited by alleged cover-ups of the clergy sex abuse scandal, which has seriously scarred U.S. Catholicism, left thousands of victims emotionally wounded, bankrupted six dioceses and resulted in more than $2 billion in payouts to victims. Many Catholics -- and ex-Catholics -- cite failed church leadership in the scandal as a source of lost faith. [Once again, rot! Many of them fell away years before 2002 - and they are simply seizing on the sex abuses as a convenient pretext to justify their falling away!]

Top Vatican officials say Benedict will address the crisis, and possibly meet victims, while he's in the United States, but many advocates are angry he hasn't been more direct and left the center of the crisis -- Boston -- off his itinerary. [Yada, yada, yada!]

A major, ongoing challenge for the American Church is how to reconcile the monarchial structure of Catholicism with democracy. As headlines from Nigeria and England scream about religious freedom and freedom of conscience, young Americans find it harder to accept certain aspects of the Catholic Church, some critics say. [The Church was never meant to be 'democratic' in the sense of 'the majority rules'. What faith can be called a faith if it changes its doctrine according to the prevailing opinion?]

"You can't be an infant religiously while the world is inviting you to take adult responsibility in every other facet of your life," said James Carroll, a former priest who has written extensively about American Catholicism and anti-Semitism in the church. "Most American Catholics are beyond the point of angry protests." [Speak for yourself, Mr. Carroll!]

While they are often at odds with the Vatican, U.S. Catholics are so in line with their own country that political scientists often say there is no "Catholic vote" -- that Catholics live and vote very much like the population in general.

Some Vatican observers say the view of American Catholics from Rome has improved in recent decades. Among them is Vatican journalist John Allen, who says church officials decades ago viewed America as "sort of a cowboy culture with a certain recklessness" and with an independent-minded Catholic Church.

At a recent forum at the Pew Research Center, he said the Vatican now has a "real fondness and appreciation for what they see as the religious health of American culture in comparison with contemporary Europe." [And that religious health is thanks to people who keep their faith - and the faith of their fathers - not because of dissidents who think their views should prevail over the Magisterium. What religion worth the name can survive if dissidents are intent on re-making it? They should just declare a new 'religion'.]

The U.S. Church is changing. Latinos will lead it in new directions, including geographically. That's because almost three in four Latino Catholics live in the South and the West, shifting the center of the U.S. church from the Northeast.

Because of the plummeting number of U.S.-born priests, clergy are increasingly being sent here from places of new growth, such as India. About 35,000 lay ministers, 80 percent of whom are women, keep many parishes running.

"You don't have to be a math genius to see that somewhere along the line, it doesn't matter how many you import, this clerical church will look quite different," said Paul Lakeland, an expert on U.S. Catholic laity.

But some believe the American church is about to right itself. Two orthodox Popes in a row have built a clear sense in a relativistic culture of what is "Catholic," the thinking goes.

['Two orthodox Popes in a row'????? What were Pius XIII, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul I, then - to name just the post WWII Popes - bur orthodox? In fact, who can remember the last Pope who was not orthodox, i.e., who did not uphold Church doctrine as it has been since the Church was born? Popes should be oprthodox - that is part of their 'jopb description'.]

Also, the Latino influx "suggests springtime for the American church," author Michael Sean Winters said. "The Latin American church still generates culture, unlike the American church. It generates art, myth, the things that help people sustain relationships."

Many Benedict-watchers say he believes the ultimate challenge goes beyond the sex abuse scandal, sociology or politics.

"Christianity is stronger here than anywhere else in the West, but we are at the frontier of the encounter between faith and modernity," Albacete said. "If Catholics can learn how to live here in a way that is reasonable and human and compassionate, it will be a great example for the church. Will we be up to it, I don't know."

=====================================================================


I'm not sure that the Post will be carrying this AP story tomrrow - they have it online, but it is not assigned a page number, so that seems to indicate it won't be in their Sunday issue. Maybe because it's postivie rather than negative?


Pope Benedict XVI
Ready to Meet America
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON



VATICAN CITY, April 12 (AP) -- Next up for Pope Benedict XVI, a welcoming nation that wants to get to know him.

Benedict's first trip to the United States as Pope begins Tuesday _ a five-day visit to Washington and New York, including a speech at the United Nations.

Anyone expecting strident speeches from the man once called "God's rottweiler" for his role defending Roman Catholic doctrine will be disappointed.

Benedict will deliver an unwavering message that society needs religious values, but this intellectual Pontiff will do it in the most positive way possible. After making relatively little headway [How can one know just now? It's too early to tell!] in his efforts to re-ignite the faith in Europe, America's roughly 65 million Catholics seem anxious to hear him.

"He has a way of helping us see what the Gospel and what the Catholic faith tradition asks of us that is challenging and not frightening," Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Benedict's host in the first leg of the five-day trip, told The Associated Press.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, notes that "religion is deeply rooted in American life despite the separation of church and state."

A March poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found nearly three-quarters of U.S. Catholics viewed Benedict positively. Among the U.S. public at large, 52 percent viewed the pope favorably, but about one-third said they didn't know enough about him to answer.

Nearly three years after he assumed the papacy following the death of John Paul II, the Pope's trip to America will change that.

"The intention behind my visit ... is to reach out spiritually to all Catholics in the United States," Benedict said in a video greeting to the U.S. ahead of the trip.

Catholic leaders say any perception of Benedict as a mirthless scold is unfair - a hangover from his long tenure as head of the Vatican office that enforces orthodoxy.

Bishops and others describe him as a shy, humble man with a keen sense of humor and a love of teaching. Long before he went to the Vatican, Benedict, a theologian, was a university professor.

The Rev. David M. O'Connell, president of the Catholic University of America, noted that John Paul emerged on the world scene at the relatively young age of 58 when he was elected Pope. He eventually became a grandfather figure for the church as his pontificate stretched to 26 years.

Benedict was already 78 when he was elected in 2005, and has been perceived as a "wisdom figure" for Catholics from the start, O'Connell said.

"This Pope, without in any way trying to be critical of his predecessor, has emphasized Jesus Christ, not the person of the pPpe, as critically significant," O'Connell said.

"The other Pope used his personality to spread the Gospel and the Gospel message, and he did it very effectively. This Pope knows he doesn't have a rock star personality and he's using what his greatest gifts are to get the message out there. And his greatest gifts are intellectual and pastoral."

Benedict has struggled against the tide of secularism, but may see the United States - which he visited five times as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - as a chance to gain ground.

In recently receiving the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, Benedict welcomed what he called the American people's "historic" appreciation of the role of religion in shaping public policy.

He used the occasion to condemn abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, praising "the efforts of so many of your fellow citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life from conception to natural death."

The visit would normally have taken place in October, when the General Assembly of the United Nations meets, but was moved up to avoid clashing with the last weeks of the U.S. presidential campaign.

Benedict will begin the trip with a visit with President George W. Bush at the White House. Like his predecessor, Benedict was sharply critical of the war in Iraq but shares with Bush a deep concern over the plight of Iraqi Christians.

The Pope also will turn 81 while in the United States, and all American cardinals have been invited to a birthday lunch Wednesday at the Vatican embassy in Washington. Vatican aides say the Pope is in good shape.

"I was struck, the Holy Father just seemed very much energized," Archbishop Wuerl said after meeting with Benedict in Rome before the trip. "His walk, his gait is impressive. You would never guess his age."

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters last Tuesday that Benedict has no plans to meet with any of the candidates. However, a host of politicians from both major parties may be on hand Wednesday when he visits the White House.

Benedict has warned Catholic politicians who must decide on such issues as abortion, euthanasia and marriage that the faith's values are "not negotiable."

However, unlike 2004 when Democratic contender John Kerry's support of abortion rights caused friction among Catholic bishops, none of the leading Democratic or Republican candidates this year is a Catholic. The voting faithful in America do not cast their ballots in a bloc.

Washington Archbishop Wuerl believes Benedict, who speaks excellent if accented English, will look at the "bigger picture" when he has that first public encounter at the White House. He said it will be an occasion "to highlight the Catholic presence and what contribution they can make in this incredibly wonderful country."

Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican's No. 2 official, said Benedict will stress the "dignity of the human being" in his address to the United Nations.

Asked in an AP interview what impact the speech may have on U.S. policy, Bertone said, "every nation has its dignity. It is obvious that also this consideration has an impact on the policy of a great power like the United States. The United States shares the ideals of the United Nations."

REGINA CAELI, 4/13/08




At the Regina Caeli prayer today, which he led from his study window overlooking St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father dedicated his homily to the World Day of Prayer for Vocations observed by Catholics today. He asked for prayers for more vocations to the priestly service but also reminded the faithful that matrimony is also a missionary vocation.

Here is what he said for English-speaking pilgrims:

---

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors here today.

This Tuesday I leave Rome for my visit to the United Nations Organization and the United States of America. With the various groups I shall meet, my intention is to share our Lord’s word of life.

In Christ is our hope! Christ is the foundation of our hope for peace, for justice, and for the freedom that flows from God’s law fulfilled in his commandment to love one another.

Dear brothers and sisters, I ask you all to pray for the success of my visit, so that it may be a time of spiritual renewal for all Americans.

Upon each of you present, I invoke the protection and guidance of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

---

Pope Benedict XVI seeks
prayers for his US trip


Vatican City, April 13 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday asked the faithful gathered in St Peter's Square to pray for the success of his trip to the United States which beginsTuesday.

"Dear brothers and sisters, I ask you all to pray for the success of my visit, so that it may be a time of spiritual renewal for all Americans. Upon each of you present, I invoke the protection and guidance of Jesus the Good Shepherd," Benedict said.

The Pontiff made the appeal in English after reciting the Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven) prayer which during the Eastertide period replaces the Sunday Angelus blessing.

Benedict's visit to the US includes talks with President George W Bush in Washington and an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on April 18.

Meetings are also planned between the pontiff and leaders of other religious faiths - Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism - and with leaders of several other Christian denominations.

"With the various groups I shall meet, my intention is to share our Lord's word of life. In Christ is our hope! Christ is the foundation of our hope for peace, for justice, and for the freedom that flows from God's law fulfilled in his commandment to love one another," Benedict said Sunday of the five-day trip.





=====================================================================

PRAYING FOR THE POPE

The United Sates Conference of Catholic Bishops has this very helpful recommendation:

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Pray the Act of Hope each day for the intentions of the Holy Father. For April, Pope Benedict’s intentions are that Christians may not tire of proclaiming with their lives that Christ’s resurrection is the source of hope and peace and that the future priests of the young Churches may be formed to evangelize their nations and the whole world.

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O Lord God,
I hope by your grace for the pardon
of all my sins
and after life here to gain eternal happiness
because you have promised it
who are infinitely powerful, faithful, kind,
and merciful.
In this hope I intend to live and die.
Amen.

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Make a holy hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament each day of the Holy Father’s visit.
- On April 16, pray for the bishops of the United States and all leaders of the Church.
- On April 17, pray for all those charged with educating children and forming faith, especially parents, teachers, and catechists.
- On April 18, pray for world leaders and all who work for justice and peace.
- On April 19, pray for young people and for an increase in vocations.
- On April 20, pray for the Church in the United States.

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Our Sunday Visitor has had its Prayer Web site open for more than a month now. Join in...
www.osv.com/PapalVisitNav/PapalWebofPrayers/tabid/5492/Defa...

Bush readies big welcome for Pope
By JENNIFER LOVEN



WASHINGTON, April 13 (AP) - The leader of the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics has been to the White House only once in history.

That changes this week, and President Bush is pulling out all the stops: driving out to a suburban military base to meet Pope Benedict XVI's plane, bringing a giant audience to the South Lawn and hosting a fancy East Room dinner.

These are all firsts.

Bush has never before given a visiting leader the honor of picking him up at the airport. In fact, no President has done so at Andrews Air Force Base, the typical landing spot for modern leaders.

A crowd of up to 12,000 is due at the White House on Wednesday morning for the Pope's official, pomp-filled arrival ceremony. It will feature the U.S. and Holy See anthems, a 21-gun salute, and the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps.

Both men will make remarks before their Oval Office meeting and a send-off for his Popemobile down Pennsylvania Avenue.

The White House crowd will be the largest of Bush's presidency. It even beats the audience last spring for Queen Elizabeth II, which numbered about 7,000.

The evening festivities will mark the first time the Bushes have put on a high-profile meal in honor of someone who isn't even a guest.

Wednesday is the Pontiff's 81st birthday, and the menu celebrates his German heritage with Bavarian-style food.

But Benedict's prayer service that evening with U.S. bishops at a famed Washington basilica preclude him from coming to the dinner. Catholic leaders will be there instead.

The President explained the special treatment — particularly the airport greeting.

"One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith," Bush told the EWTN Global Catholic Network in an interview aired Friday.

He added that he wanted to honor Benedict's conviction that "there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies."

The Bush-Benedict get-together will be the 25th meeting between a Pope and a sitting President.

The first did not come until shortly after the end of World War I, when Woodrow Wilson was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XV in 1919. The next wasn't for 40 more years, when President Eisenhower saw Pope John XXIII in Rome.

Since then, such audiences have become a must-do. Every President has met with the Pope at least once, often more. This week makes Bush the record-holder, with a total of five meetings with two Popes.

There are more than 64 million reasons for this. Catholics number nearly one-third of the U.S. population, making them a desirable constituency for politicians to court.

"The Pope represents not just the Catholic church but the possibility of moral argument in world affairs and it is very important for American presidents to rub up against that from time to time," said George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and biographer of Pope John Paul II.

The Vatican — seat of a government as well as a religious headquarters — has an interest, too.

"It wants to be a player in world affairs, and everyone understands that to do that you have to be in conversation with the United States," said John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the independent National Catholic Reporter.

On social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research, Bush and Benedict have plenty of common ground.

But they disagree over the war in Iraq, just as Bush did with Benedict's predecessor, John Paul.

When Benedict was a cardinal before the 2003 invasion, the now-Pontiff categorically dismissed the idea that a preventive strike against Iraq could be justified under Catholic doctrine. In his Easter message last year, Benedict said "nothing positive comes from Iraq."

Benedict told Bush at their first meeting last summer at the Vatican that he was concerned about "the worrisome situation in Iraq." Bush characterized the Pontiff's concerns as mostly limited to the treatment of the Christian minority in Muslim-majority Iraq. The statement out of the Vatican suggested a broader discussion.

Weigel predicted talks this time would be focused almost entirely there.

Prominent Christians have been slain in Iraq in recent weeks and tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians are believed to have fled the country because of attacks and threats.

"The Vatican is a very adult place," he said. "The arguments of five years ago are over."

The current Pope's approach may be softer than that of John Paul, who turned from Bush's presentation to him of the Medal of Freedom in 2004 to read a statement about his "grave concern" over events in Iraq.

But Benedict is no less committed to the Church's stand on issues such as abortion, stem cells and the death penalty, as well as war.

In fact, the death penalty is another area of long-held disagreement, with Bush a strong supporter. Benedict also speaks forcefully against punitive immigration laws and the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, and for environmental protection and social welfare — all in ways that often run counter to Bush administration policies.

But differences between Popes and Presidents are nothing new.

John Paul and former President Clinton clashed — with strikingly sharp Vatican statements — on abortion.

Also, the church's opposition to almost any war but self-defensive ones has been a persistent theme in U.S. relations.

Pope Paul VI wanted to help mediate an end to the Vietnam War. John Paul also urged President Reagan against the arms race and spoke out vigorously against the Persian Gulf war under the current president's father. All these urgings, like the current anti-Iraq argument, were to no avail.

"Modern Popes have seen themselves as voices of conscience and peacemakers," Allen said. "U.S. administrations haven't always been excited for them to play that role."

Weighty discussions aside, the talks with Bush are not likely to be the most-remembered or most influential part of the Pontiff's six-day, two-city U.S. tour, Weigel said. That is expected to come when Benedict addresses the United Nations on Friday.

"I think it's nice they're going to meet. They have a lot of things to talk about," he said. "But the notion that the world operates by the big guys getting together and cutting a deal is wrong."

Associated Press researcher Susan James in New York contributed to this report.

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The following report places the Benedict-Bush meeting in a surprising - because not previously considered - context.


A Catholic wind in the White House:
Bush is America's first 'Catholic' President
By Daniel Burke

Sunday, April 13, 2008


Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the President remarked that he had read one of the new Pontiff's books about faith and culture in Western Europe.

Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the Pope's writings was no surprise to those around him.

As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush's inner circle expect the Pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the President. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America's first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation's first Catholic president.

This isn't as strange a notion as it sounds. Yes, there was John F. Kennedy. But where Kennedy sought to divorce his religion from his office, Bush has welcomed Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings into the White House and based many important domestic policy decisions on them.
"I don't think there's any question about it," says Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic, who was the first to give Bush the "Catholic president" label. "He's certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy."

Bush attends an Episcopal church in Washington and belongs to a Methodist church in Texas, and his political base is solidly evangelical. Yet this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians.

These Catholics -- and thus Catholic social teaching -- have for the past eight years been shaping Bush's speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history.

"I used to say that there are more Catholics on President Bush's speechwriting team than on any Notre Dame starting lineup in the past half-century," said former Bush scribe -- and Catholic -- William McGurn.

Bush has also placed Catholics in prominent roles in the federal government and relied on Catholic tradition to make a public case for everything from his faith-based initiative to antiabortion legislation. He has wedded Catholic intellectualism with evangelical political savvy to forge a powerful electoral coalition.

"There is an awareness in the White House that the rich Catholic intellectual tradition is a resource for making the links between Christian faith, religiously grounded moral judgments and public policy," says Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor of the journal First Things who has tutored Bush in the church's social doctrines for nearly a decade.

In the late 1950s, Kennedy's Catholicism was a political albatross, and he labored to distance himself from his church. Accepting the Democratic nomination in 1960, he declared his religion "not relevant."

Bush and his administration, by contrast, have had no such qualms about their Catholic connections. At times, they've even seemed to brandish them for political purposes.

Even before he got to the White House, Bush and his political guru Karl Rove invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to instruct the candidate on the church's social teachings.

In January 2001, Bush's first public outing as President in the nation's capital was a dinner with Washington's then-archbishop, Theodore McCarrick. A few months later, Rove (an Episcopalian) asked former White House Catholic adviser Deal Hudson to find a priest to bless his West Wing office.

"There was a very self-conscious awareness that religious conservatives had brought Bush into the White House and that [the administration] wanted to do what they had been mandated to do," says Hudson.

To conservative Catholics, that meant holding the line on same-sex marriage, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, and working to limit abortion in the United States and abroad while nominating judges who would eventually outlaw it. To make the case, Bush has often borrowed Pope John Paul II's mantra of promoting a "culture of life."

Many Catholics close to him believe that the approximately 300 judges he has seated on the federal bench -- most notably Catholics John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court -- may yet be his greatest legacy.

Bush also used Catholic doctrine and rhetoric to push his faith-based initiative, a movement to open federal funding to grass-roots religious groups that provide social services to their communities.

Much of that initiative is based on the Catholic principle of "subsidiarity" -- the idea that local people are in the best position to solve local problems.

"The president probably knows absolutely nothing about the Catholic catechism, but he's very familiar with the principle of subsidiarity," said H. James Towey, former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives who is now the president of a Catholic college in southwestern Pennsylvania.

"It's the sense that the government is not the savior and that problems like poverty have spiritual roots."

Nonetheless, Bush is not without his Catholic critics. Some contend that his faith-based rhetoric is just small-government conservatism dressed up in religious vestments, and that his economic policies, including tax cuts for the rich, have created a wealth gap that clearly upends the Catholic principle of solidarity with the poor.

John Carr, a top public policy director for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, calls the Bush administration's legacy a "tale of two policies."

"The best of the Bush administration can be seen in their work in development assistance on HIV/AIDS in Africa," says Carr. "In domestic policy, the conservatism trumps the compassion."

And other prominent Catholics charge the President with disregarding Rome's teachings on the Iraq war and torture. But even when he has taken actions that the Vatican opposes, such as invading Iraq, Bush has shown deference to church teachings.

Before he sent U.S. troops into Baghdad to topple Saddam Hussein, he met with Catholic "theocons" to discuss just-war theory. White House adviser Leonard Leo, who heads Catholic outreach for the Republican National Committee, says that Bush "has engaged in dialogue with Catholics and shared perspectives with Catholics in a way I think is fairly unique in American politics."

Moreover, people close to Bush say that he has professed a not-so-secret admiration for the Church's discipline and is personally attracted to the breadth and unity of its teachings.

A New York priest who has befriended the President said that Bush respects the way Catholicism starts at the foundation -- with the notion that the papacy is willed by God and that the Pope is Peter's successor.

"I think what fascinates him about Catholicism is its historical plausibility," says this priest. "He does appreciate the systematic theology of the church, its intellectual cogency and stability."

The priest also says that Bush "is not unaware of how evangelicalism -- by comparison with Catholicism -- may seem more limited both theologically and historically."

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush's domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.

Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year.

"I think he is a secret believer," Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush's first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a "closet Catholic." And he was only half-kidding.

Daniel Burke is a national correspondent for Religion News Service.

Pope Benedict XVI:
Teacher, scholar and friend
By Julia Duin

April 13, 2008


He's been called enigmatic, erudite and elegant.

Nearly three years into Benedict XVI's papacy, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has managed to puzzle his detractors, who on the day he was elected Pope, predicted a "Papa Ratzi" pontificate. [And what would that be?]

Instead, Benedict named himself after Pope Benedict XV, who headed the Church during World War I, and Benedict of Nursia, the man who brought monasticism to Europe 15 centuries ago.

"[Among] the surprises of the past three years, there is this Pope's striking popularity, which I don't believe has registered well on certainly North American radar screens," said papal scholar George Weigel at an April 1 panel discussion sponsored by the Pew Forum.

"His weekly general audience on Wednesdays consistently draws crowds larger than or as large as John Paul II drew at the height of the Great Jubilee of 2000....This Pope has touched something in the people of Italy, perhaps a hunger to be fed by a master teacher."

Instead of disciplining wayward Catholic theologians per his former job as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Benedict has come out with encyclicals on hope (Spe Salvi) and love (Deus Caritas Est).

"He has great interior freedom, so you can expect the unexpected from him," said the Rev. Joe Fessio, founder of Ignatius Press in San Francisco and theologian-in-residence at Ave Maria College near Naples, Fla.

The Pope will be in the United States for six days this week for what may be his only visit to the world's third-largest Catholic country. It is the ninth visit of a Pontiff to American shores — counting two brief stopovers in Alaska by Pope John Paul II — beginning with Pope Paul VI's visit in 1965.

His key message is expected to be an April 18 speech to the United Nations.

"It will be Benedict's argument that what the world desperately needs today is a global moral consensus — that is, a consensus on fundamental moral truths that are universal and unchanging that can serve as a basis for things like protection of human rights and human dignity," John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, said at the Pew Forum event.

"I think his analysis is that in an era in which you have several important players on the world stage — China and Iran come to mind — arguing that the whole concept of human rights is a sort of Western cultural artifact, I think the Pope believes that the construction of a kind of moral consensus that we can all agree upon based on truths about human nature and open to the wisdom of spiritual traditions and religious traditions is a critical priority."

Catholic pundits nationwide have been speculating on what other messages the Pope will bring.

"He's not going to offer a radical change in position nor some radical new idea or thought," Father Fessio said. "But I have never heard him speak ever when I didn't learn something new. It will be fresh, it will be relevant."

The Pope, he added, sends a message through each public gesture, such as his personally baptizing Magdi Allam, a well-known Italian convert from Islam the day before Easter.

In 1975, Father Fessio received his doctorate in theology from University of Regensburg, Germany, advised by none other than then-Father Ratzinger, his thesis director.

The American priest still sees his mentor, as the Pope's former students gather at least once a year at Castel Gandolfo — the papal vacation spot — to meet with their old instructor.

"He is the master of the kind of presentation which is quite justified but has great impact," he said. "Like Our Lord, he tells parables of heaven. He sees symbolism in everything. He will not just talk about Scripture, but about symbols."

Such as the time of his birth. The Pope was born at 4 a.m. on April 16, 1927, which was Holy Saturday. As that day is a traditional day to admit new converts to the church, little Joseph Alois Ratzinger was baptized at about 8 a.m.

"He sees that as a symbol of his life growing out of the Church's liturgy," Father Fessio said. "His natural life [his birth] and supernatural life [his baptism] took place in the Sacred Triduum," the three-day period encompassing Easter.

Anyone curious as to the papal agenda should reread the Pope's first sermon, given during Mass the morning of April 20, 2005, Father Fessio said.

"He said he'd implement the Second Vatican Council in faithful continuity with the Church's tradition," the priest said. "That was the charter he gave himself. He said the Eucharist was the center of life for all Christians and it'd be the center of his pontificate."

Pope Benedict has not been a strict continuation of Pope John Paul II, said Holger Zaborowski, assistant professor of philosophy at Catholic University and co-editor of three of the Pope's German-language books.

"There are tiny differences that you can see in the details," the professor said. "His way of thinking is very continuous. It's not like he was elected Pope and he suddenly changed.

"John Paul II was more the poetical pope, the visionary. Benedict is into the church Fathers and rethinking church tradition."

Which may be why one of his most significant actions to date has been Summorum Pontificum, a document released last summer that freed priests around the world to say the Tridentine Mass (also called the Traditional Latin Mass) without their bishop's prior approval.

Even though the Mass was largely sidelined after Vatican II, Pope Benedict noted that the famous church council had never abandoned the traditional Mass. It was a gesture that resounded well with traditional Catholics.

However, others may be surprised at how personable this Pope is, Mr. Weigel said.

"In the fall of 2005, ... the Pope met with some thousands of Italian 8-, 9- and 10-year-old kids who had all just made their first Holy Communions," he said. "And his Q&A with these kids is as masterful a presentation of some complex ideas in Catholic belief and practice to kids in a language that obviously resonated with them that you'll ever see.

"So you have this remarkable combination of a walking encyclopedia of theological, philosophical and historical knowledge, but with a dramatic capacity to simplify in the best sense of the term. …

"It's the kind of simplicity that only comes from having worked through the arguments and debates in a very detailed way and yet coming to a point of articulation that is accessible and that has proven remarkably popular not only in Rome, but wherever the Pope has traveled."

Mr. Allen suggested that there is a "disconnect" between Pope Benedict's public impression and private personality and that his American observers may become avid fans.

"You will never meet a more gracious figure," he said. "He is infinitely kind, and in some ways kind of shy, and he also has a surprisingly sharp sense of humor."

The above article was illustrated with this 'timeline':



And it is just one of the stories in a special section that the Washington Times has opened for the papal visit:





Here's another pre-visit story from the Washington area that starts out, however, with all its negative biases.


The Pope In America:
Deciphering Benedict XVI
By Scott Calvert
Baltimore Sun
April 13, 2008


Pope Benedict XVI comes to Washington this week a virtual stranger in the United States, home to the third-largest Catholic flock on the planet.

But his itinerary, which includes stadium-sized Masses for tens of thousands of followers, will provide an opportunity to change his image as a dour disciplinarian.

Three years into his papacy, the 80-year-old Pope enjoys nowhere near the public affection, let alone the adoration, that made Pope John Paul II's visit to Baltimore in 1995 such a rapturous event for so many.

[Mr Calvert, in 1995, John Paul had been Pope for 18 years and had suervived an assassiantion attempt in 1981, three-and-a-half years after he became Pope, that in itself alone could have made every Catholic on earth feel affection for him! There is no ground or call for comparison - and more importantly, no need for it.]

Just ask retired teacher Lou Williams. In 2005, he impulsively bought a $2,200 plane ticket and flew to Rome for Pope John Paul's funeral. As a Catholic, he says he wanted to say goodbye in person to the revered, rock star-popular Pontiff.

By contrast, when Williams heard that during his first visit to America Pope Benedict would visit Washington, the Baltimore resident was not especially excited.

Sure, he tried (and failed) to get a ticket for Thursday's Mass at Nationals Park. But he did so "just to be there, show respect."

To him, the big difference between the Popes is the professorial pope's absence of charisma. In Williams' arid observation, "He doesn't have it at all."

[One man's opinion is hardly the consensus. How shallow for someone to cite 'lack of charism'a as a reason for disinterest in his Pope!]

At least Williams has an opinion of this Pope, and actually likes his conservative views. Some 80 percent of Americans, and 63 percent of Catholics, know little or nothing about him, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. In another survey, by Marist College, one in six Americans had never heard of the man.

To the extent he is known, he may have a bit of an image problem, having been caricatured as a "Rottweiler" in his former job as defender of church doctrine.

It probably has not helped that the only biographical fact most people knew about the new Pope was that he had been in the Hitler Youth and that one of his few well-publicized acts as Pope was a speech many Muslims decried as anti-Islam.

Well, Americans are in for a surprise, says Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, who has observed the Pope over many years. "There is a magnetism to him, and that's going to come across. I think people will come away pretty impressed."

Facing challenges
Pope Benedict is the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics at a time when the church faces big challenges here and abroad. In Europe, the Pope sees rising secularism as a major threat. In this country, the Catholic Church has lost so many native-born congregants - some because of the priest sex abuse crisis - that fully 10 percent of American adults say they are former Catholics, according to another Pew survey.

In many ways, Pope Benedict's tenure so far is a continuation of Pope John Paul's 27-year tenure. Vatican watchers say that is no surprise given both Pope Benedict's track record when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the customary continuity from one papacy to the next.

An outspoken promoter of peace, Pope Benedict regularly calls for an end to hostilities in Iraq and other hot spots. He firmly opposes abortion, homosexuality and the ordination of women. He says he is striving to improve relations with Jews and Muslims; his itinerary this week includes a visit to the Park East Synagogue in New York.

As Pope, he has banned seminary admission for actively gay would-be priests, and he has endorsed the revival of a Latin Mass largely abandoned decades ago in the name of modernity.

Like his predecessor, the Pope has no tolerance for what he calls the "dictatorship of relativism" - a situation "that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure."

He has said the Catholic Church is the only "true" church and makes it clear that Rome sets the rules. As under Pope John Paul, dissident theologians have been punished, though they have not been silenced.

But Pope Benedict's style differs markedly from his predecessor's, an outgrowth, to a large degree, of contrasting personalities.

As a young man, Pope John Paul dabbled in acting and never lost his love for the stage. As Pope, he traveled the world and always seemed reluctant to see his festive stadium Masses end.

Pope Benedict is a German academic with a quiet, even shy, demeanor. He treasures his vast library and plays Mozart on the piano. He has acknowledged that being Pope is not easy. It is one thing to know Church doctrine, he quipped, but another to help a billion people live it.

The Pope is often described as a teacher for whom words matter more than symbols or grand gestures. As author David Gibson put it, "He gets to the soul through the head; John Paul II got to your soul through the heart. You really have to pay attention and read what Benedict says."

The differences go further. Pope Benedict was "not overly enthusiastic about the rock-star pontificate" of Pope John Paul and has taken a low-key approach with less focus on himself, said Gibson, author of The Rule of Benedict.

"His goal is to present the faith and step out of the way," Gibson said. Not that he is a "placeholder Pope," as many assumed he would be. Still, his ascension came late in his life, at age 78, by which age Pope John Paul had already been Pope 20 years.

His low-watt style has not meant a hands-off approach, however. He promotes Catholicism as a beautiful way of life rather than a list of thou-shalt-nots. In that sense, Gibson says, he has shifted from bad cop to good cop without easing his underlying rigidity.

"Affirmative orthodoxy" is the phrase used by John L. Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter to describe Pope Benedict's attempt at forging "a strong defense of classic Catholic doctrine and practice, pitched in the most positive fashion possible."

A good illustration, he has written, is the Pope's first encyclical, or letter, God is love. It speaks to sexual morality but without reciting proscribed behaviors such as premarital sex and abortion.


First good look
For most Americans, and many of the country's 70 million Catholics, Pope Benedict's six-day trip to Washington and New York will be their first real look at him since April 19, 2005, when white smoke over St. Peter's Square heralded a new Pope.

"People are going to meet someone who comes across far more like a friendly, courteous, knowledgeable grandfather than some kind of enforcer," said Catholic scholar George Weigel.

Pope Benedict may not possess Pope John Paul's "pyrotechnical personality," but Weigel - who has known him 20 years - said he has drawn larger crowds to his regular Wednesday audiences at St. Peter's Square than Pope John Paul did. "He has a different kind of winsome personality. It doesn't have to be snap, crackle and pop all the time."

Physically the Pope is a slight man. He speaks "carefully but confidently," Gibson says, not in Pope John Paul's rich baritone but in the "level intonation" of a professor. He speaks English well.

By all accounts, Pope Benedict had been looking forward to retirement in Bavaria when his fellow cardinals elected him.

Born in Germany, he spent much of his first half-century there. While a teenager during World War II, he joined the Hitler Youth, as was mandatory for all high school students then. He was drafted and assigned to an anti-aircraft unit. He deserted, returned home and was sent for a time to an American prisoner of war camp. Once the war ended, he began studying for the priesthood.

After three decades as a fast-rising theologian, Ratzinger was made head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department responsible for defending orthodoxy in the church, in 1981.

It was that role that earned him the sobriquets "Rottweiler," "Grand Inquisitor" and "Enforcer." The reputation may have gotten new life in 2006, when the Pope gave the speech that was decried by many Muslims and some Christians.

Pope Benedict's theme was the critical link between faith and reason. He attacked the idea of holy war, using a quote attributed to a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who battled Muslim armies: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The speech led to street protests in Indonesia, Turkey and Syria. In Somalia, a nun was murdered, apparently in retribution. The Pope apologized [He did not! - he said he was sorry the quotation he cited had been misinterepreted to be his opersonal view], saying he had been misunderstood and had "profound respect" for Islam.

"It's very hard to tell what he was trying to do," said Lawrence Cunningham, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. He said it may be that Pope Benedict "kind of forgot" that as Pope any such utterance would ricochet around the world. Or it may have been a calculated, if combative, attempt to spark more probing discussions within Islam.

Archbishop O'Brien said of the lecture: "I'm not so sure that was a mistake. What has happened since then might prove that to be the case. There is blossoming a dialogue between Muslims and Roman Catholics."

Others say the Pope erred and seemed to forget he was not merely an academic speaking to fellow intellectuals.

"Clearly he should have added a line saying, 'Of course I don't agree with the emperor,' " said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center. Reese says he believes, however, that the Pope meant no offense to Islam: "Frankly, he wishes Catholics were as devout as Muslims are."


Strict on doctrine
Reese knows firsthand Pope Benedict's insistence on rigid adherence to doctrine. In early 2005 then-Cardinal Ratzinger forced Reese to resign as editor of the Jesuit magazine America for publishing articles that questioned the Vatican's writings on same-sex marriage. [This is a canard that even Reese himself would and should clarify as inaccurate.]

Others in the church have been sanctioned for similar doctrinal misdeeds.

Reese said what made the punishment palatable was that he and other liberals were not silenced altogether but could still write. "I can live with that," Reese said.

Meanwhile, notes Gibson, religious conservatives have chafed at some of the Pope's decisions, including his chosen successor for his old Vatican post. [And they know better than the Pope who should be his CDF Prefect?]

Such issues should have little impact on the Pope's reception when he arrives Tuesday.

Whether Catholics agree with his positions, no one expects anything but a warm and enthusiastic welcome. The atmosphere may be less exuberant than during Pope John Paul's visits but will be celebratory all the same.

"Just wait and see," Reese said. "You're going to have thousands of people cheering and screaming and singing when he celebrates these Masses. If they had 10 times the number of tickets, they would have people who wanted to come."

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Surely, there are dozens more in the United states that reporters could ask about Benedict XVI than Gibson, Reese, Allen and Weigel! Journalistic laziness - merely quoting what has already been said elsewhere, instead of going out to get firsthand accounts themselves - is condemining us to read the same thing over and over - more particularly, the same mistakes and misinterpretations.

And Benedict continues to be presented to the reading public through the eyes of not-entirely-friendly persons like Gibson and Reese, even if the favorable comments of such as Weigel and alone are also mentioned.

In fairness to Fr. Reese, he has said quite a lot of positive things lately about Benedict in connection with this visit.

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A critical visit for Benedict and his US flock:
A chance for Americans to 'take the cut of his jib'
By Michael Paulson

April 13, 2008


Pope Benedict XVI, who has praised the United States for its religious freedom but rued its increasing secularization, arrives this week for a six-day, two-city visit in which he will introduce himself to a nation enamored of his predecessor but largely unsure what to make of the new Pontiff.


Pope Benedict XVI acknowledgedShis weekly general audience at St. Peter's Square on Wednesday. His US trip
promises to be one of the first defining moments of his papacy. He had visited the United States prior to
his papacy, and he speaks fluent English. (Pier Paolo Cito/AP)

He will discuss public policy at the White House and the United Nations, will preach the Gospel at Yankee Stadium and Nationals Park, will roll through the streets of Washington and New York in his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz popemobile, and will kneel in silent prayer at Ground Zero.

But mostly, he will offer Americans and, in particular, American Catholics, a chance to take the measure of this spiritual leader, who despite three years in office remains a relative unknown.

Those who follow him closely, eager to find quirks of humanity in this stern-seeming man, have fixed on a handful of colorful details - his fondness for cats, his skill at the piano, the fluffy fur-trimmed hat, and the striking red loafers that may or may not have been styled by Prada.

He is dogged by his reputation as a doctrinaire hatchet man for John Paul II, but most often described by those closest to him as a brilliant and prolific theologian seeking to inspire, not chastise, his large but troubled flock.

"The Pope is coming to the church in the US at a time when American Catholicism is in a very serious crisis," said Russell Shaw, an author and commentator who is the former communications director for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Some people would say it's too late, that the Church is in an irreversible downward spiral in the United States. I think it can be turned around, but we've suffered enormous losses in numbers and commitment over the last 40 years. The Pope is not going to turn it around by magic, but I hope what he will do is begin to address these problems seriously."

The Catholic Church, with 67 million adherents in the United States, is the nation's largest religious denomination. But it is hemorrhaging members - 10 percent of the American adult population is made up of former Catholics - and its overall population level is stable only because of immigration, according to a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey released in February.

The Church is also reeling from the effects of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which has harmed Mass attendance, financial contributions, and seminary enrollments in Boston and beyond.

Benedict anticipated the demographic quandary in 2004, writing in a book, "One cannot hide the fact that in the United States, also, the Christian heritage is falling apart at an incessant pace, while at the same time the rapid increase in the Hispanic population and the presence of religious traditions from all over the world have altered the picture."

Benedict has made several gestures in the direction of the growing Hispanic population, which now makes up about one-third of the nation's Catholics; he appointed the first cardinal in Texas, an area of considerable Hispanic growth, and his video greeting to the United States, released last week, included a section in Spanish.

"He thinks more highly of America than we might have thought," said Chester L. Gillis, a professor of theology at Georgetown University. "As much as, in the past, Popes may have wanted to excoriate Americans for creating a culture of death, or hedonism, or consumerism, Benedict is dealing with Europe, in his own backyard, where it's a pretty sad situation for Christianity. So he comes here, and he's looking at a Christianity that's pretty robust. We have a culture in which religion is important."

Benedict's papacy has had several important moments. He has traveled to his native Germany, as well as Poland, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, and Austria, has authored encyclicals about love and hope and a book about Jesus.

He has championed peace, speaking out on Iraq, the Middle East, and Tibet, as well as the environment, declaring the Vatican the world's first carbon-neutral state. And he has engendered a few controversies, most notably when he offended Muslims with a 14th-century anecdote he cited in a speech that referred to elements of the early history of Islam as "evil and inhuman."

But his trip to the United States, with its ravenous media and affluent and sizable Catholic population, promises to be one of the first defining moments of his papacy. The trip was triggered by Benedict's agreement to speak to the UN, but it is the other events, such as when he addresses American Catholics, that will help shape his public image going forward.

"This is an opportunity for him to present himself to the American people, who don't really know him, and to give them the opportunity to take the cut of his jib," said R. James Nicholson, who got to know the future Pope as US ambassador to the Vatican from 2001 to 2005. "I think they will be surprised."

Benedict has had a complicated relationship with the United States. Like John Paul II, he opposed the Iraq war and has expressed concerns about abortion, divorce, birth control, capital punishment, and the increasing tolerance of same-sex relationships in the United States.

A highly regarded German theologian, Benedict, then known by his birth name, Joseph Ratzinger, visited the United States multiple times prior to his papacy, and he speaks fluent, although heavily accented, English.

During his lengthy tenure as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, he met most American bishops, who would visit him on their period visits to church headquarters.

He has described his views toward the United States in writing and in conversations, in which he has reflected on the relationship between the freedom of religion here and the relatively high degree of religiosity. He has praised the United States for its "sense of a special religious mission toward the rest of the world."

"He really appreciates a lot of things about America - he is very fond of our openness, and he spoke with me about the First Amendment and how the separation of church and state has functioned to create a pluralist environment in which higher church attendance takes place," said L. Francis Rooney III, who was US ambassador to the Vatican from 2005 until earlier this year.

Rooney, like others interviewed who know Benedict personally, say the image of him as a severe enforcer of orthodox doctrine is a caricature that does not acknowledge the Pope's humility, his humanity, or even his smile.

"He's been very misinterpreted in the United States so far, and I hope this visit gives him a way to shine publicly the way I've seen him privately - warm, almost meek, thoughtful and gentle, and so profound that you've got to focus on every word," Rooney said.

The United States is home to just 6 percent of the world's Catholic population, but retains an outsized influence within the Church because of the amount of money contributed by the nation's Catholics and because the US Catholic population, despite enormous problems, continues to attend church in much higher numbers than in most other Western nations.

Here, roughly 40 percent say they have attended church or synagogue in any given week; in western Germany, where Benedict is from, just 14 percent attend worship weekly, and in much of northern Europe the numbers are even lower.

"Europe, unlike America, is on a collision course with its own history," Benedict wrote in a 2004 book, Without Roots.

"In the United States, there is still a civil Christian religion, although it is besieged and its contents have become uncertain."

Benedict has also spoken positively about America as a model for tolerance and dialogue. In February, in a welcoming address for the new US ambassador to the Vatican, longtime Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, Benedict said:

"Your nation's example of uniting people of good will, regardless of race, nationality, or creed, in a shared vision and a disciplined pursuit of the common good, has encouraged many younger nations in their efforts to create a harmonious, free and just social order."

And, he added, "I cannot fail to note with gratitude the importance which the United States has attributed to inter-religious and intercultural dialogue as a positive force for peacemaking."

Benedict has a mixed record with such dialogues. He has been an outspoken critic of relativism - the notion that there are no absolute truths - and has been leery of interfaith dialogues that might appear to suggest that any set of beliefs is fine.

He has alienated not only Muslims, with his speech in Germany and his recent Easter baptism of a Muslim author, but also Jews, with the increased use of a Latin Mass that includes a Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews. In the past he has also raised doubts among some Protestants, by writing that their churches "suffer from defects."

But scholars say Benedict has simply been more determined that interfaith dialogues be substantive, not merely symbolic; his comments about Islam, for example, have led to a serious exchange with Muslim scholars and now he plans to meet with them in Rome.

On this week's trip, he plans to greet Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu leaders in Washington, and in New York, he plans to visit a synagogue and lead an ecumenical prayer service with Protestant and Orthodox Christians.

"Benedict pleads that reason must be the basis for any kind of dialogue between religions, whereas John Paul's was more spiritual, and you might even say, more emotional outreach," said Greg Tobin, a Seton Hall University administrator who authored a book about Benedict.

"Benedict is very clear in his perspective that the Catholic Church is the true means to salvation, and he's clear about wanting to have good relations with other religious groups. To him they're not mutually exclusive."

Benedict's schedule, which includes stops only in Washington and New York, is as striking for what it avoids as what it includes.

While John Paul II frequently said Mass for crowds of hundreds of thousands, or even, on occasion, millions, Benedict's largest venue will be Yankee Stadium, where he will preside over a Mass for 57,000, including 3,000 Bostonians.

The absence of larger-scale events reflects, in part, security concerns, and, in part, Benedict's personality. Whereas John Paul II was a charismatic and theatrical leader, Benedict is a more reticent figure. John Paul II was also 59 years old when he first came to the United States; Benedict will turn 81 on Wednesday, while in Washington.

In a letter to Boston Catholics last week, Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley alluded to this distinction, saying, "The Holy Father is not a celebrity or a rock star. He is a shepherd and represents Christ."

Benedict also conspicuously decided not to visit Boston, the epicenter of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, despite repeated invitations from O'Malley.

The Pope apparently did not want the abuse issue to overshadow his trip, but he is expected to mention the issue, and possibly to meet with victims, during his time in the United States.

He also plans to acknowledge the bicentennial of the Boston Archdiocese, as well as several other dioceses, during the Yankee Stadium Mass.

Benedict will also try to avoid getting involved in American politics. Popes have in the past avoided even visiting during election years; Benedict is coming now because he wanted to speak at the UN, but the timing adds a complication, and is likely to mean his remarks are even more theological and less oriented toward policy concerns than they otherwise might have been.

"Pope Benedict is going to emphasize the interior and spiritual and not the exterior and political," said the Rev. Joseph D. Fessio, who was a doctoral student of Benedict in Germany and who is now the editor in chief of Ignatius Press, the primary English-language publisher of Benedict's works.

The trip is expected to draw massive media attention, and Benedict's every event and utterance will be analyzed as Americans try to figure out what to make of him.

"This trip establishes Benedict as the Pope in the minds of many Americans, who still have a very strong memory of John Paul II," said Mathew N. Schmalz, an associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross. "If anyone has seen a Pope in person, it's a significant moment. People remember that."

======================================================================

Remarkably absent from the flood of stories that have been written so far before this visit is that, in fact, Benedict XVI as Cardinal Ratzinger was the most widely-seen candidate for the Papacy and eventual Pope in history. Not even the staunchest Benedict supporters among the media's 'go-to' persons have pointed this out.

American Catholics, along with the rest of the world, who followed the funeral of John Paul II in April 2005, are not likely to forget that he offered the funeral Mass and a eulogy for the late great Pope to what must have been the largest global TV audience in history so far.

Those who did cannot have failed to remark two weeks later when the new Pope was elected, "He was the cardinal who said the funeral Mass for John Paul and delivered that beautiful eulogy that was punctuated with cries of 'Santo subito' from the crowd."

A pity none of the pollsters did not think about designing a question that would have elicited some such response.

The usual dissenters and their familiar demands for the Church to accommodate them (in otehr words, become something other than the Church it has been for 2000 years) - instead of them trying to live by what the Church teaches - rates this story from AP, which does have the grace to give Mons. Sambi the last word.


Papal visit provokes
array of protests
By DAVID CRARY


NEW YORK, April 13 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI may not see them or hear them, but aggrieved Roman Catholic activists hope his U.S. visit this week will help them draw attention to issues ranging from the ordination of women and gay rights to sex abuse by priests and the Vatican ban on contraception.

The groups have planned vigils, demonstrations and news conferences to press their causes as the Pope visits Washington and New York.

On Monday evening, the eve of his arrival, supporters of women's ordination will host what they are calling "an inclusive Mass" at a Methodist church in Washington, presided over by Catholic women — including two who were recently excommunicated.

"We cannot welcome this Pope until he begins to do away with the church's continuing violence of sexism," said Sister Donna Quinn, coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns.

Participants in the service will include Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath, who were excommunicated last month by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis because they were ordained as part of a women-priest movement condemned by the Vatican.

"In the face of one closed door after another, Catholic women have been innovative, courageous and faithful to the church," said Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference. "They continue to make a way where is none."

Gay Catholic activists, who plan to demonstrate Tuesday along the papal motorcade route in Washington, have compiled a list of statements by Benedict during his career which they consider hostile to gays and lesbians. These include forceful denunciations of gay marriage and of adoption rights for same-sex couples.

"He has issued some of the most hurtful and extreme rhetoric against our community of any religious leader in history, and we want to call him into account for the damage that he's done," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA.

Duddy-Burke said she hopes the protests will be coupled with celebration of the gains made by gay Catholics in America in recent years. She cited the growing number of parishes welcoming openly gay members and the dozens of Catholic colleges that now have gay-straight alliances.

Another gay Catholic group, New Ways Ministry, hosted a news conference at which speakers conveyed what they would tell the pope if they had the opportunity.

The speakers included Gregory Maguire, author of the best-selling novel "Wicked," who along with husband Andrew Newman is raising three adopted children as Catholics in Massachusetts, the only state to allow same-sex marriages.

"We invite you to spend a day, a meal, a weekend with us," Maguire said in his message to the Pope. "We don't want to serve as a poster-family for gay Catholics. ... We will just be ourselves, in all our confusion, aspiration, need and joy."

Another divisive issue being raised this week is the Vatican's ban on contraception. Gay rights groups and others say the ban undermines programs promoting condom use to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In a conference call Monday organized by Catholics for Choice, four Catholic theologians will be examining the impact of the 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae," which defined the Vatican's opposition to artificial birth control.

"Catholics wonder why there's this huge disparity between what the hierarchy says we should do in regard to contraception and what Catholics on the ground actually do," said Catholics for Choice president Jon O'Brien.

He termed the ban "a great tragedy ... a policy that lacks compassion and understanding."

Asked about the prospects that Benedict might reconsider the ban, O'Brien replied, "I do believe in miracles."

For many American Catholics, the most distressing church-related issue of recent years has been clerical sex abuse. Thousands of molestation allegations have been filed against Catholic clergy, and dioceses have paid out more than $2 billion in claims since 1950.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abuse by Priests, said his advocacy group would not be mollified even if the pope meets privately with abuse victims.

"Extraordinarily few Catholics and victims will be moved in any way by gestures, words, tokens," Clohessy said. "It's as plain as day that three years into his papacy, Benedict has done literally nothing to protect the vulnerable or heal the wounded."

Clohessy said his group will make use of the papal visit to press for tough disciplinary action against bishops who covered up abuses by their priests and to urge pre-emptive steps by the Vatican against abuse by priests in other nations.

Clohessy expressed disappointment that the Pope was not visiting Boston, where the scandal burst into the national spotlight in 2002.

"Showing a willingness to visit the epicenter of the crisis — that would have been one gesture that might have been effective," Clohessy said.

Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based reform group which emerged from the scandal, placed a full-page ad last week in The New York Times, costing more than $50,000, to air its call for a transformation of the Church.

The ad urged Benedict to meet with abuse victims, oust bishops who covered up abuse and promote a greater role for lay Catholics in running their parishes.

The extent to which the Pope addresses the varied grievances during his trip remains unknown. But the Vatican's envoy to the United States, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, said any dissent that might arise was regrettable.

"Even in the Catholic Church, nobody has the right to instrumentalize the visit of the Pope to serve their personal interests," Sambi told the National Catholic Reporter. "The problem is that there are too many people here who would like to be the Pope ... and who attribute to themselves a strong sense of their own infallibility."


Another negative meme - and I would agree this time with Richard Dawkins who has said that a meme, true or not, spreads itself through a culture like a viral gene - on this papal visit is the fact that Boston is not on the Pope's schedule, as this article today wants to hammer home.



Pontiff will not stop in Boston - as if this were news!
by John Phillips





Pope Benedict XVI rejected a request by the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, to visit a city considered the epicenter of the U.S. priestly sex abuse scandal, Vatican sources say, as part of a strategy to reassure Americans that there is no place in the church for child abusers.

In part, the decision not to make a stop in Boston reflects the Pontiff's general preference to keep his foreign trips as tight as possible so that he can get back to Rome, the sources said.
[I am pretty sure that is not what they said! He's 81, not 58, and must be judicious about where he can go and what he must do when travelling - it's as simple as that. Washington was a must because it's the nation's capital and it's his first visit to the US as Pope. And New York, of course, because both UN and Ground Zero are there, the two 'must-do' missions on this trip.]

The German pontiff always has been keen to eschew the long, grueling journeys that characterized the pontificate of his Polish predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who died three years ago.

"The short trips favored by Benedict underline how different he is to John Paul," said one veteran observer, who asked not to be identified. "The Polish Pope was willing to risk burning himself out by making pilgrimages around the world, but this Pontiff wants to conserve his energy." [The observer did well not to have his name known, because what he implies is that this Pope has less missionary zeal than his predecessor - when all he had to do, openly, is to say, "Look, if you were 81 and were faced with the same circumstances, would you add another city to your itinerary?]

Pope Benedict also decided to decline the request by Cardinal O'Malley on the advice of the papal nuncio to Washington, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who felt inserting such an item in the Pope's schedule might set off protests and revive an issue the Vatican wants to put behind itself, said the sources.

"Why be a hostage to fortune?" one Vatican correspondent quoted the nuncio as asking the Holy See in a report.

"Benedict will say something on the sex scandal and the need to get over it," added the source. "He will reassure the public that there is no place in the Church for it. He cannot say nothing, but his remarks will be in the sense that 'the thing is behind us now.'" [And it is. This Pope has not been less vocal than anyone about denouncing abuses and making it be known there is 'zero tolerance' for this in the Church - and one would hope the Church in America, after having seen how expensive its past 'hear-no-evil, see-no-evil' policy was, has learned its lesson well!]

The Pope was determined to make the visit to bolster the morale of American Catholics and insist on the role of those of Catholic identity in many areas of American life such as education.

"He's always admired two aspects of the United States especially: the democracy and the melting pot, and he will affirm the need to respect different cultures," said Gerard O'Connell, a Vatican correspondent for the British Catholic weekly The Tablet.

The Pontiff is expected to acknowledge the changing face of American Catholicism with half of an estimated 69 million American Catholics of Hispanic descent. He also is expected to express papal gratitude at the traditionally substantial contribution made by the U.S. Catholic flock to Rome.

"He will praise the American Catholics for their generosity. They are always very good givers," said a source at the North American College in Rome, the seminary where young Americans study for priesthood.

Vatican watchers initially expressed surprise that the Pope should go to the White House on his 81st birthday. [What a silly statement! He's not going there for his birthday. It just happens that his birthday falls on the day when he is scheduled to go the Whote House, the first full day of the visit - and this was obvious from the time the dates for teh trip were made known!]

However, they noted that previous hostility between the Holy See and the White House over the invasion of Iraq has abated as the Vatican seeks, above all, to support embattled Iraqi Christians.

Rome fears that a hasty U.S. pullout would leave nothing to stop Islamist forces in Iraq from a bloody all-out revenge campaign against Christians, whom some Muslims see as tools of U.S. and Western "crusaders."

"It is clear that the Iraqi chapter is over in terms of war, that now the question as seen from Rome is how to rebuild Iraq," said Mr. O'Connell.

In addition to discussing Iraq with President Bush, the Pope wants to speak about the place of Christians throughout the Middle East and stability in the region, "The Israeli-Palestinian question is a major concern of the Vatican."

The Pope's speech at the United Nations nevertheless is expected to stress the need for dialogue rather than military force to resolve international conflicts, sources said. He also is expected to speak out strongly in the speech against terrorism, to focus on concern over what the Vatican sees as the pernicious impact of climate change and to underline the need for religious liberty.

Pope Benedict also is expected to reaffirm the right to life during his trip by making a strong attack on abortion and euthanasia. However, it is not thought that this will have much impact on the U.S. election campaign, given that U.S. bishops are divided over whether Communion should be denied to Catholics who flout church teaching on key moral issues.


The Archbishop of Boston has somethiNG to say about the Boston meme:


Cardinal O’Malley says
Pope will inspire his flock
By Jessica Fargen

Saturday, April 12, 2008


Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley says he, too, is “disappointed” Pope Benedict XVI won’t be visiting Boston on his first U.S. trip, but believes the pontiff’s American sojourn will “strengthen and encourage” American Catholics in the wake of the church sex abuse crisis.



“The mistakes of the past must be avoided,” O’Malley told the Herald yesterday, four days before he will leave to greet Benedict in Washington , D.C. “I’m sure the Holy Father’s message will be along those lines . . . a call for reconciliation and for a desire to bring people together and to call people to healing.”

In an interview yesterday , O’Malley talked about what his role will be in Benedict’s first visit, including a birthday lunch with the pontiff, about the disappointment he felt when he found out the Holy Father would not visit Boston and about the hope he has for the visit.

benedict, who will turn 81 during his visit, arrives Tuesday for a six-day trip to Washington and New York.

Last week, the Vatican announced that Benedict would deliver a message of “trust and hope,” and seek to heal wounds left by the pedophile priest scandal, which was first exposed in Boston.

Some speculated that Benedict isn’t visiting Boston because it would shine a spotlight on that ugly scandal, but O’Malley said Benedict’s age and the sheer number of requests he receives played more of a role.

O’Malley said he has no doubt Benedict will address that painful chapter in American Catholicism.

“The Holy Father is very aware of the situation in the United States . . . so I was certain that whether he came to Boston or not, he would certainly address this very important issue,” he said. “He knows our situation, our pastoral needs, so of course he would want to speak to us about these very important issues in our lives.”

The Archdiocese of Boston received 3,000 tickets for next Sunday’s Mass at Yankee Stadium, and demand for those tickets remains high.

O’Malley will share several moments with Benedict, including the Wednesday lunch, a visit to the White House, and Mass celebrations in Washington and New York.

O’Malley will also see the Pontiff off during a farewell ceremony at JFK International Airport.

O’Malley said he hopes Catholics “won’t just be caught up in the event” of the Pope’s visit, but will“carefully analyze what his message is.”

“I’m urging everyone to be very attentive and be reflective.”

More from the pre-visit Sunday editions of the major US newspapers...



Pope arriving for first U.S. visit
by DAVID O'REILLY

April 13, 2008


Despite his reputation as a stern guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, Pope Benedict XVI's first papal visit to the United States will likely be upbeat and positive, say Church leaders.

Benedict plans to arrive Tuesday evening at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Washington and spend two days in the capital before departing Friday for New York City.

The visit, which is scheduled to include a Wednesday meeting with President Bush, a Friday address to the United Nations, and stadium Masses in Washington and New York, also will mark the creation 200 years ago of four Roman Catholic dioceses, including Philadelphia's.

Benedict will not visit Philadelphia, but 3,000 Catholics from the archdiocese will attend his Mass at Yankee Stadium next Sunday. Later that day, he returns to Rome.

"No one knows for sure what he's going to say" in his 11 prepared remarks over five days, the Rev. David O'Connell, president of Catholic University of America, said in an interview Thursday.

"But I can tell you what he's not going to do: He's not going to hammer us over the head," said O'Connell, who serves on the organizing committee.

O'Connell will be Benedict's host Thursday when the Pontiff visits Catholic University to address the presidents of all the nation's Catholic colleges and universities.

As the Vatican's chief theologian under Pope John Paul II, Benedict - then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - was often caricatured as a harsh enforcer of Catholic orthodoxy and nicknamed "God's rottweiler."

No one knows that better than the Rev. Thomas Reese, a liberal Jesuit and author whose frequent challenges to Vatican orthodoxy cost him his job as editor of the Catholic weekly magazine America soon after Benedict's election three years ago.

"But the papacy changes the man," Reese, now a senior fellow at the Jesuits' Woodstock Seminary in Washington, said last week4/7-11. "He's got the whole world on his desk now."

Demand for tickets to the two stadium Masses has outstripped supply by 10-1, Reese said, as "people have warmed up to his personality, his smile, the way he has eye contact."

Benedict will sometimes travel in the famous "popemobile," a tall, glass-enclosed vehicle that allows him to stand and wave to crowds as his motorcade passes by. He might also use it to circle Nationals Park in Washington and Yankee Stadium in New York.

Other highlights on the schedule include a Sunday morning visit to the site of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and an address to the nation's Catholic bishops Wednesday - his 81st birthday - at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

Benedict, who has rankled some in the Jewish community by saying the Church awaits the day when Jews will "say yes to Christ," recently added a Friday visit to a Manhattan synagogue to his itinerary.

By now, most people living around the capital have gotten the message that Popes wear white.

Anticipating large crowds during his stay, the Washington subway system last week ran a TV commercial urging anyone attending the papal Mass at Nationals Park to take public transportation.

In an attempt at levity, the commercial featured a grinning bobblehead doll of the Pope riding the Metro. The doll, however, wore the red cap and cape of a cardinal.

The local news media had a field day with the gaffe, and the Archdiocese of Washington made it known it was not amused to see the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics represented by a jiggling, six-inch-tall doll. The subway system apologized and yanked the ad.

Just what the Holy Father seeks to achieve with the visit was a matter of some discussion Thursday, when Reese and other Catholic scholars joined in a telephone news conference sponsored by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

"This is not a visit to the United States. It's to the United Nations," said the Rev. Richard Ryscavage, director of Fairfield University's Center for Faith in Public Life. "It's been traditional [for popes] to do this early in their papacy." [Not exactly, since the UN only dates back to 1945, and only two Popes have done so before - coincidentally early in their Papacy - Paul VI in 1965 (third year) and John Paul II (for the first of two times) in 1979 (second year).]

Ryscavage said he thought Benedict would use the U.N. address to speak to the needs of the world's poor in an era of globalization.

The Rev. David Hollenbach, director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, said he saw Benedict as a "theologian pope" who would seek to "communicate certain fundamental realities of the Christian faith."

Hollenbach said he thought that if Benedict made something "distinctive" of the visit, "it will be the way he addresses issues of political and social concern, like environment and war."

Reese speculated that Benedict might want to speak to the relatively high rate at which American Catholics are departing the faith.

Although the U.S. Catholic population of 67 million is growing, Reese remarked that numerous studies show the growth is due largely immigration from Latin America.

The panelists were uncertain whether Benedict would mention the clergy sex-abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in the United States this decade. Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio, or representative, to the United States has replied vaguely when asked.

Maryann Cusimano Love, a professor of politics at Catholic University, said she anticipated that the over-arching theme of Benedict's trip would be a call to nonviolence and "the need to be peacemakers around the world . . . at home as well as in international conflicts."

"The heart of his message is that these are not divisible ways of looking at the world," Love said. "They're all interconnected.



Pope Benedict XVI introducing
himself to America
BY MATT STEARNS

April 13, 2008


WASHINGTON -- If Pope John Paul II was an international icon, his successor, Benedict XVI, remains largely undefined in the public eye in the United States even as the Roman Catholic Church here experiences a wrenching transition.

[John Paul II did not become an international icon overnight. He was on the world stage for almost 27 years. And if he was 'better known' - meaning, greater public awareness about him - at a similar stage in their Papacy as Benedict is now, it owed a lot to the assassination attempt on him in May 1981, two and a half years into his papacy. But enough already with these unequal terms of comparison, and enough with these poibtless comparisons. Each of them is great on his own.]

This week provides an opportunity for Benedict to establish his public image and steady the American church, as he makes his first visit to the United States since he ascended to the papacy after John Paul's death three years ago.

Benedict will visit Washington and New York this Tuesday to Sunday. He'll celebrate Mass in two baseball stadiums, address the United Nations General Assembly, and meet with President Bush, Roman Catholic educators and other religious leaders. A visit to Ground Zero in lower Manhattan is also planned.

The trip comes as the Roman Catholic church in the United States -- with the third-largest Catholic population in the world -- struggles against titanic pressures.

Among them: a sex-abuse scandal that led six dioceses to file for bankruptcy and left others in financial straits as payouts to victims exceeded $1.5 billion; a demographic shift in American religion that has saddled the church with the largest net loss of one-time members of any major faith; and a fundamental threat to church orthodoxy linked in part to America's secular, polyglot culture.

It is against this backdrop that Benedict, who turns 81 Wednesday, will introduce himself to America.

Within the American church, many conservatives have swooned for Benedict. They admire his embrace of the traditional Latin Mass, his challenge to Islamic extremism (which inflamed many Muslims but inspired dialogue with others), and his encyclicals on love and hope. For them, Benedict is not at all in John Paul's shadow.

''He immediately established his own credentials as a spiritual, theological force,'' said Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com and a well-known conservative Catholic thinker. ``He's shown he's a man of great learning and culture and not the least bit afraid of anyone.''

To many non-Catholics, Benedict remains a mystery. A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 32 percent of Americans didn't know enough about Benedict to offer an opinion of him.

[There's also a simple explanation for why many Americans don't know enough about him - and MSM should not be surprised about the poll results. They are to blame. After his election, MSM has hardly reported anything about him - and the little that they do has been limited to trivia (Prada shoes) and controversy in wehich he is usually misrepresented or the issues over-simplified. If the New York Times, which prides itself on being 'the newspaper of record' only had him on the front page three times in three years compared to 27 for John Paul - as John Allen frequently points out - then does anyone really expect smaller publications to pay more attention, given the notoriously follow-the-leader herd mentality of contemporary journalism?]

While his reputation as a cardinal was as John Paul II's hard-line theological enforcer, he has adopted a gentler if still firm approach as Pontiff.

Those who tune in this week will discover a leader focused on what veteran Vatican observer John Allen calls "affirmative orthodoxy; a strong defense of traditional Catholic faith and practice . . . but phrasing all that in the most relentlessly positive fashion possible."

''Benedict's diagnosis is that people are far too familiar with what the Catholic Church is against rather than what it's for . . . and so I think his effort is to try to present a positive vision of what the Catholic Church represents,'' said Allen, Vatican correspondent for the independent National Catholic Reporter.

Aside from publicly reiterating Catholic teachings on issues such as abortion and the Vatican's long-standing concern for peace in the Middle East, Benedict's vision will likely be underscored in two places: his U.N. speech and his meeting with Catholic educators.

Benedict has argued that ''the dictatorship of relativism'' is a grave crisis of modernity. At the United Nations, he's expected to argue that ''what the world desperately needs today is a global moral consensus -- that is, a consensus on fundamental moral truths that are universal and unchanging that can serve as a basis for things like protection of human rights and human dignity,'' Allen said.

On Catholic education, the Pope will stress the idea that ''the Catholic identity of Catholic institutions of higher education serves both the church and the wider culture,'' said George Weigel, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington think tank.

Emphasis on orthodoxy may seem odd in the United States, whose Catholics tend to be dogmatically lax. The Pew study found that 51 percent of American Catholics support abortion rights, in stark conflict with Vatican teaching. And nearly 60 percent support the death penalty, contrary to church teaching.

Many Catholics have simply left the Church. One-third of Americans who were raised Catholic are now ex-Catholics, according to the Pew study. (The crisis of lost followers has been masked by huge growth among immigrants who are disproportionately Catholic, so the proportion of Americans who are Catholic has remained at about 25 percent).

Yet compared to Europe, where virtually every aspect of traditionalism seems under siege, the United States is a vibrant religious garden.

''Both for this Pope and for an increasing number of senior people in the Vatican, the biggest difference is that the U.S. is not a post-Christian society, whereas Europe, Western Europe at least, they perceive as being thoroughly caught in the net of post-Christian depression,'' Weigel said. ``Religious communities in America have a capacity to shape our cultural life, our social life and our political life in a way that can only be dreamt about now in virtually all of Western Europe.''

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church's credibility in the American religious marketplace took a major hit with revelations of systemic cover-ups in many dioceses of the sexual abuse of children by priests. Benedict must address in some way what Allen called ``the deepest trauma in the life of the Catholic Church in the United States in its more than 200 years of history.''

Vatican insiders say that those planning the Pope's agenda considered a visit to Boston, the epicenter of the scandal, or a meeting with victims of pedophile priests. Both appear to have been scotched. A Vatican spokesman told the Associated Press this week that Benedict recognizes the gravity of the situation and will address the crisis with a message of ``trust and hope.''

Victims' advocates say that neither Benedict's words nor his actions are enough. They wanted him to discipline bishops who presided in U.S. dioceses where abuse occurred, and to develop systems to prevent abuse around the world, especially in developing countries.

EWTN has begun running its specials on the Pope's visit. Times are given in Eastern Standard Time (US).


BENEDICTUS XVI: PAPA JOSEPH RATZINGER
Sat 04/12/08 8:00 PM
Sun 04/13/08 2:00 AM
Tue 04/15/08 11:00 PM
Sun 04/20/08 8:30 PM

POPE BENEDICT XVI: MY VATICAN
Sun 04/13/08 10:00 PM
Tue 04/15/08 2:00 PM
Fri 04/18/08 4:00 AM
Sun 04/20/08 5:00 PM

Vestments are more
than just clothes for the Pope
by DAVID GIBSON

Sunday, April 13, 2008


For reasons that will be obvious, I wish this article had been written by someone who has no axes to grind against Benedict for ideological reasons, i.e., because he's not 'liberal' - as though a Pope could be liberal the way they mean it.


During Pope Benedict XVI's visit this week, the first since his election three years ago, Catholics will listen intently to what he says, and how he says it, all in hopes of figuring out if Joseph Ratzinger has indeed become a kindly German shepherd or whether he remains God's Rottweiler, one of the many monikers he earned during a long tenure as the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog.

Yet as important as Benedict's words will be in introducing the Pope to an American audience that knows little about him, it may be just as important to check out what he's wearing. No, not the red Prada shoes that set tongues waging early on in his pontificate. (Besides, the designer kicks were apparently knockoffs by the papal cobbler.)

Of greater import than Benedict's shoes or his sunglasses (rumored to be Serengetis by Bushnell) will be his choice of liturgical vestments and other papal accouterments, choices that speak volumes not only about his personal tastes but also about his vision of the Church's future and its past.

With increasing regularity, Benedict has been re-introducing elaborate lace garments and monarchical regalia that have not been seen around Rome in decades, even centuries. He has presided at mass using the wide cope (a cape so ample it is held up by two attendants) and high mitre of Pius IX, a 19th-century Pope known for his dim views of the modern world, and on Ash Wednesday he wore a chasuble modeled on one worn by Paul V, a Borghese pope of the 17th century remembered for censuring Galileo.

[Even when he means to be 'helpful', as he seems to in this article, Gibson will never pass off a chance to make a knife-stab at the Pope. These malicious little stabs are totally unnecessary - especially when in the course of doing it, Gibson reveals he has not done enough research or is just simply downright wrong!

First, the cope. The cope has been worn by every modern Pope, not just by Pius IX; and the copes worn by Benedict XVI have not been any wider or more ample than the copes commonly used by his predecessors. Perhaps Gibson is thinking of the cappa magna - which is the extremely long cope that requires train-holders - last worn by Pope Paul VI, and still worn today by cardinals and metropolitan bishops. In fact, there is a picture of the Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, wearing the cappa magna, held up behind him by acolytes. (I will make an appropriate post with pictures in the CHURCH VESTMENTS thread.)

Second, he misrepresents Blessed Pius IX - who did not 'take a dim view' of modernity, only of certain aspects of it which he enumerates in his encyclical about the ills of modernity.

Third, he also misrepresents Paul V by making it appear he was the Pope responsible for Galileo's sentencing by the Roman Inquisition. Paul V was Pope in 1616 when the Church first asked Galileo not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre, and for the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. His 1633 trial and sentencing by the Inquisition came under Pope Urban VIII who had been Galileo's friend adn admirer even when he was a cardinal.]

On Good Friday he donned a "fiddleback" vestment dating to the Counter-Reformation era of the 16th century, and he has used a tall gilded papal throne not seen in years.

[Once again, Gibson gives the wrong impression - as if the fiddleback has not been used since the 16th century. He should have said it was the common form of the Roman chasuble from the 16th century until the 1970 liturgical reform which re-introduced the so-called Gothic chasuble which is far more ample and flowing. Incidentally, this was not decreed in any way by Vatican-II. Nowhere does it say so in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Vatican-II decree on liturgy.... And the throne of Leo XIII has been used by previous modern Popes including John Paul II - only it was used in the Sala Clementina and the Sala Regia (Throne Room) of the Apostolic Palace.]

And that's not to mention the ermine-trimmed red velvet mozzetta, a shoulder cape, or the matching camauro, a Santa Claus-like cap that art students will recognize from Renaissance portraiture.

[The ermine-trimmed mozzetta has been worn by every Pope in winter until John Paul II decided not to use it, the same way he decided he did not have to wear red shoes all the time. And Benedict wore the camauro appropriately when he had to be out in the winter cold for a General Audience. Mentioning these items without any context for why and when they are worn is just wrong, because it provides incomplete and therefore misleading information. As if Benedict decides what he wears in public out of sheer caprice.]

As Robert Mickens, the Rome correspondent for The Tablet of London, put it, the Pope's aides have "been busy raiding the liturgical storage rooms and the Vatican museums in an attempt to return the papal liturgies to their pre-Vatican II splendor" -- a reference to the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s that ushered in reforms simplifying many church rites and scaling back grandiose vestures. [Gibson would cite Mickens - one ultra-liberal citing a fellow traveller!]

Even director Franco Zeffirelli, who staged many papal events for John Paul, has chided the new Pontiff for bringing back a "showy" style of attire because it makes him seem aloof. [Enough has been said in this Forum about Zeffirelli's ill-advised comments!]

Now comes word that Benedict has commissioned a set of 30 new vestments modeled on those worn by the notorious Medici pope, Leo X, a corpulent, corrupt fellow who at his election famously declared, "Let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us."

[Wrong again! Gibson is citing the one and only report that for Palm Sunday, the Vatican had ordered Medici-inspired garments - which was never officially confirmed - and as it was quite clear that the actual garments did not bear the Medici coat-of-arms in any way, the report was probably erroneous. The number '30' in the report referred to the number of total vestments ordered for everyone in the 'cappella Papale' - the Pope's liturgical entourage - who generally wear vestments that match the Pope's.]

And he proceeded to do just that, paying the bills by selling indulgences and church offices, and provoking Martin Luther into nail ng his 95 theses to a church door in Germany. (News leaks about the pricey vestments irked the Vatican and have reportedly delayed their introduction until Pentecost in May, when the furor may have abated.)
[See how wrong Gibson's facts are? He's talking as if all this is still to come, when it has already come and gone!...And 'pricey vestments' is such a tacky expression!]

So what's going on here? Church conservatives are of course ecstatic, filling the blogosphere with the kind of gushing chatter that only liturgical couture, especially of the haute variety, can inspire. [No one is 'gushing' - not Father Z or Rorate caeli or the New Liturgical Movement or Father Guy ('Shouts in the Piazza' blog). They are simply reporting what they see approvingly, and for the instruction of their readers.]

Church liberals are understandably less enthusiastic. They wonder whether these clothing choices are part of a wider campaign -- along with the restoration of the old Latin Mass and other liturgical renovations -- to turn the clock back on the Vatican II reforms. [How can it be turning the clock back, when Vatican-II never prohibited either the traditional Mass or the traditional liturgical vestments?

The answer is, as always, more complex than that, and it starts with Benedict's personal esthetic -- that of a proud Bavarian who "breathed the Baroque atmosphere" as a child and still plays Mozart to relax. He speaks Latin as well as he does English, and he has always been as fastidious about his liturgical wear as he is about his doctrinal pronouncements.

John Paul II, on the other hand, was almost indifferent to garments, wearing scuffed oxblood loafers around the world and donning whatever robes his hosts had for him -- a leopard skin in Mozambique, for example, and a Jean-Charles de Castelbajac design in France.

In his memoirs, Ratzinger recalled that when he was 5, the august Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich visited their small town, arriving in a long black limousine and leaving a lasting image on an impressionable child.

"With his imposing purple, he impressed me all the more, so that I said, I would like to become something like that."

Recalled his older brother Georg: "It wasn't so much the car, since we weren't technically minded. It was the way the cardinal looked, his bearing and the garments he was wearing that made such an impression on him."

Yet Benedict's sartorial choices go well beyond matters of taste. Catholicism's sacramental imagination, and the church's sacred rubrics, invest great meaning in symbols, and each retro lace surplice and gilt-trimmed mitre that Benedict dons sends a message.

"He is a very patient man, very methodical, very German, and little by little he is re-directing things," says the Rev. Guy Selvester, pastor at St. Matthew's Church in Edison and a heraldic designer who confesses to being "a papacy geek" since he was a kid. [At least, Gibson had the good sense to consult Father Guy, a New Jersey priest who knows these things - and better yet, is an unabashed Benedict admirer.]

"He is slowly trying to say that he wants to restore a particular kind of character to the liturgy."

Nervous reformers worry that this old-fashioned "character" also comes with an old-style authoritarianism, and Selvester agrees that some high-style clerics can fancy themselves churchly princes. But, he says, that is not the case with Benedict.

"There is a difference between being conservative and being traditional," says Selvester.

And Benedict's choices are about tradition -- an effort, Selvester says, to "show a continuity with the entirety of the papacy. He wants to say, 'I am the successor of John Paul, Pius IX, Leo X, and Peter the Apostle.'"

Yet such an assertion is also a way for Benedict to take sides in a raging debate in Catholicism about whether and how the church can change -- not just in fashions -- and whether Vatican II marked a shift in Church teaching (namely, toward a liberal view that Benedict does not favor) or whether it was a recovery of traditions that always existed and thus does not constitute a break with the past.

[How can someone who is supposed to be a Catholic resource person even think that Vatican-II could be 'a shift in Church teaching'? How can the Church teach other than what it has taught for the past 2000 years. None of the Church Councils have represented a 'shift in teaching' but rather a clarification and a definition of doctrinal elements.]

In an interview last week, the Pope's new master of ceremonies, a tradition-minded 43-year-old Italian priest, Msgr. Guido Marini, told Catholic News Service that the increased use of older liturgical elements merely reflect "development in continuity" -- a catchphrase for those who seek a "reform of the reform" of Vatican II, as the Pope has often called for.

Indeed, Benedict's sartorial styles may say more about his wish to anchor the present in the past than a desire to return to a glorious history that may have been less than holy.

His larger goal in doing this is to show that the Church doesn't change willy-nilly, and his catholic taste in vestments and vintage ac cessories is another means to that end.

Critics will note that placing the last 40 years in the context of a 2,000-year span can be a way of diminishing the import of recent changes that Benedict doesn't like, and that the Pope tends to make his counterpoint by drawing on styles from the most sumptuous eras of church history. For instance, he probably won't be wearing the tunic of a Galilean fisherman anytime soon.

Moreover, Benedict's emphasis on continuity ['development in continuity' - not just indiscriminate continuity] over change is undercut by the fact that there are some long-standing traditions that even he avoids.

For example, the sedia gestatoria, a litter that bore popes aloft (often accompanied by ostrich plumes) like Roman emperors has likely been definitively supplanted by the popemobile. And Pontiffs used to be crowned with a tall, three-ringed tiara of precious metals known as the triregnum. But Paul VI was the last Pope to be crowned, in 1963, and he donated his tiara to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, where Benedict will preside at two events next week.

Despite the fond wishes of some liturgy buffs, Father Selvester doesn't expect the Pope to duck downstairs and try on the tiara. "That's not going to happen," he said with a laugh. Some traditions, it seems, even Benedict would rather forget.

=====================================================================

David Gibson, former religion writer for The Star-Ledger, is the author of The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World. He also wrote The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism.

Pope confident he'll be safe
during US visit



VATICAN CITY, April 13 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI is confident that the US government has done enough to protect him during his upcoming visit to the United States, the Vatican's number two said Sunday.

The Pope is "very calm before this trip," Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state and Benedict's top aide, said on Vatican Radio when asked about the risk of a terrorist attack.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church arrives in Washington on Tuesday for a five-day visit that will also take in New York.

"Do you remember his trip to Turkey? There were threats before and during (the trip)," said Bertone.

"This time around there have been threats too, no doubt," he added but did not elaborate.

"We have trust in the protection that the (US) government will put in place wherever the Holy Father will pass, as happened in Turkey," during his visit in late 2006, he said.

That four-day visit came a mere 10 weeks after Benedict outraged Muslims by appearing to equate Islam with violence in a speech in his native Germany.

Police in the United States are expected to mount one of their biggest security operations of the year during Benedict's visit.

It is the first papal trip to the United States since the September 11 attacks of 2001, involving far higher security precautions than during visits by Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II.

Police will work with the Secret Service and the papal Swiss Guard during the visit, which kicks off on April 15, but have declined to say how many officers will be on duty, or divulge what special measures are being taken.

The New York police department has said only that it is working closely with the Secret Service "to provide the highest level of protection possible for the Pope during his visit to New York."

Among the now routine security precautions being deployed for the visit will be the use of metal detectors and identity checks for those attending events on the Pope's itinerary.

Unlike John Paul II's visit to New York in 1979, when he held an outdoor open-admission event at a park in southern Manhattan, attendance at Benedict's public events is being more strictly controlled.

John Paul's visit to New York in 1995 -- his first to New York after the 1981 assassination attempt against him in the Vatican -- was also relatively open, with a Mass in Central Park attended by more than 100,000 people.

This time the Pontiff is to attend a reception at the White House on Wednesday and scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

Other events on the schedule include a visit to Ground Zero, the site of the September 11 attacks in New York, a meeting with Jewish leaders in Washington and a short stop at a synagogue in New York.

But it is his two showpiece events at baseball stadiums in Washington on Thursday and in New York on April 20 that are causing the biggest security challenge.

Access to the Pope's appearance at New York's Yankee Stadium, where he is to celebrate Mass on April 20, is being strictly controlled with the help of bar-coded, non-transferable tickets and hours-long security procedures.

Federal agents were carrying out background checks on everyone attending the New York event, who were being asked to arrive at their parishes six hours before the service to allow enough time for security, according to reports.

The New York press said agents were also conducting background checks on volunteers from church groups who had signed up to help during the visit.

The numbers of those attending the public events look to be far smaller than in the past. The archdiocese of Washington handed out 46,000 tickets for the mass on Thursday, compared with the 175,000 who attended a Mass there by John Paul II in 1979.

[What a ridiculous comparison! There are less tickets now, only because the sites are smaller - How can you compare the capacity of an enclosed baseball stadium to an open site like the Mall in Washington or the Great Lawn of Central Park in New York?]

The increased security is partly due to specific threats. Last month, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the Pope of being deeply involved in a "new crusade" against Islam.




Benedict XVI to propose Golden Rule
for international coexistence


VATICAN CITY, APRIL 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI will propose the golden rule of coexistence for the family of nations, and particularly for the United States as a world leader, affirmed a Vatican spokesman regarding the Pope's U.S. trip this week.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, spoke about the trip in the most recent edition of Vatican Television's "Octava Dies."

The Pontiff himself gave an insight into his plans for the apostolic journey with an English and Spanish video message directed to Americans.

Father Lombardi noted how the Holy Father explained in this video that "Jesus Christ is the hope of all men and women of every language, race, culture and nation."

"Not only every person in an individual way, but rather populations as well can find in him direction and meaning, to build a fraternal 'family,' according to the design of God who is Father of everyone," the spokesman affirmed.

He added: "This Jesus, with his commandment of reciprocal love, enlightens and fulfills the golden rule that is written in the conscience of every human person and upon which all of us can place ourselves beyond the differences between religions, beyond even believing or not believing: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do not do that which you would not have them do unto you.'

"In the assembly of representatives of all the peoples of the world, in the heart of a nation that has a huge weight in the destiny of the humanity of today and of tomorrow, Benedict XVI wants to offer to all his service of religious and moral authority, enlightening, with his habitual clarity, that of which today we have more necessity: the basis, the solid and common point of support, upon which to build together the answers to the historical challenges we find ourselves facing."

"Together," he added, "because as Pope John Paul II already said precisely to the United Nations, we form a family of peoples."

"If we find together the basis, we can look toward the future with hope 'of peace, justice and liberty,'" Father Lombardi added. "The basis and the direction. It is not something small what the Church wants to offer, fraternally, to everyone."


So ZENIT picked up the Raymond Arroyo interview with President Bush and the President's closing answer! I wonder if any of the MSM will dare to use it. The entire trasncript is posted in the APOSTOLIC VOYAGE.... thread.


Bush says he sees God
in the eyes of the Pope


WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- U.S. President George Bush said that when he looks into Benedict XVI's eyes, he sees God.

The President made this affirmation Friday when he answered the last question posed him during an interview with Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) anchor Raymond Arroyo.

Arroyo noted that Bush is planning an all-out welcome for the Pope, who arrives in the United States on Tuesday for a five-day visit. Most notably, Bush will go to the airport to receive the Holy Father, a courtesy he has never extended to any visiting leader.

The President says he plans to do this "because [the Pope] is a really important figure in a lot of ways. One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith. And, three, that I so subscribe to his notion that [...] there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies, that I want to honor his convictions, as well."

The Holy Father, Bush said, "represents and stands for some values that I think are important for the health of the country, and when he comes to America, millions of my fellow citizens will be hanging on his every word. And that's why it's important."

The EWTN anchor noted that the Pope will probably bring up the issue of the war in Iraq, asking what the U.S. government is doing to protect the Christian minority there.

Bush said that "something we have been doing all along, is urging the government to understand that minority rights are a vital part of any democratic society. And by the way, my concern isn't just for minority rights in Iraq; it's for minority rights throughout the Middle East."

In another area of rights, Arroyo asked Bush why he plans to attend the Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing, given China's dire human rights record.

Bush stated that he did not want to make the Olympics a political platform: "And the reason why is because I can talk to [China] about religious freedom prior to the Olympics, during the Olympics and after the Olympics -- which I have done. I don't need the Olympics to express my position to the Chinese leadership on freedom. I just don't need them -- because that's all I have been doing as your president. In other words -- if people say, well, you need to express yourself clearly about freedom of religion, my answer is, what do you think I've been doing?"

Bush talked as well about embryonic stem cell research, for which he has restricted federal funding.

Arroyo noted, "In 2001 you met with then Pope John Paul II; he encouraged you not to endorse federal funding. You didn't; you restricted the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. [...] As a result of that move, alternative technologies were analyzed; adult stem cells have now produced [...] cures for 80 different diseases."

And Bush affirmed: "I feel like it was the right decision then, and obviously the data has now shown that -- I hope it shows to people it's the right decision. [...] By the way, I think this is the beginning of what is a very interesting debate that future presidents are going to have to deal with, and that is science versus ethics, the value of life versus saving life -- supposedly. [...] I've obviously drawn the line in the sand that honoring life in all forms is a touchstone for good science.

"I think it's important for people to understand that a culture of life is in our national interests and that -- it's also important to understand that the politics of abortion isn't going to change until people's hearts change, and fully understand the meaning of life and what it means for a society to value life in all forms -- whether it be the life of the unborn, or the life of the elderly; whether it be the life of the less fortunate among us, or the life of the rich guy. I mean, it's a moral touchstone, I think, that will speak to a healthy society in the long run."

The President said that the moral strength of the Pope is key for politicians.

"And I'm going to remind His Holy Father how important his voice is in making it easier for politicians like me to be able to kind of stand and defend our positions that are, I think, very important positions to take," he said.

Finally, Arroyo asked him, "You said, famously, when you looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes you saw his soul. [...] When you look into Benedict XVI's eyes what do you see?"

And Bush answered immediately, "God."

The Pope's Sex Abuse Challenge
By JEFF ISRAELY/ROME AND DAVID VAN BIEMA

Mon Apr 14, 2008



Pope Benedict XVI's trip this week to the United States will include high-profile visits to the White House, United Nations and Ground Zero. But no matter what political issues or media angles may be buzzing before take-off, the Vatican tends to stress the pastoral aspect of any papal journey.

The six-day itinerary is above all stacked with church services, baseball stadium masses and Catholic institutional encounters to allow the pontiff to tend to his flock, and to the priests and bishops who do the ministering when he's back in Rome.

The American visit, however, poses an unprecedented pastoral challenge for the 80-year-old Pontiff. Benedict's is the first papal trip to the United States since the priest sex abuse crisis erupted in 2001.

It is a controversy that has left much of the American laity bitterly disillusioned with their Church's leadership. For many of the 67 million American Catholics, how the Pope confronts the lingering fallout from the pedophilia scandal may largely determine the success of this visit.

[How can the writers make these sweeping statements speaking for 'much' of the 67 million American Catholics when all the recent polls show a positive attitude towards the Pope - even if many of the respondents claim they know little about him? Of course, there is disillusion, but it would seem to come largely from those who wre already cafeteria Catholics to begin with or disaffected in other ways with the Catholic Church. Why did the recent polls not specifically address this issue, i.e., "Has the sex abuse scandal caused you to be disillusioned with the Church?" Right-thinking and informed Catholics would know that the abuses were committed by human beings who happen to be priests, that only a tiny fraction of all priests have committed such offenses, and that their offenses do not reflect on the teachings of the Church at all even if their immediate superiors (theri bishops) must share responsibility for failing to address the problem.]

Benedict's arrival in the U.S. is being seen as a make-or-break moment for Rome to regain the trust of its American flock, the third largest national contingent within a worldwide Catholic Church of 1.1 billion faithful.

In recent days, the Vatican has confirmed that on at least one occasion Benedict will specifically address the issue. The Vatican's No. 2 official, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, told FOX News that the Pope will confront the "open wound" of sex abuse during the April 19 morning Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral for New York-area clergy.

It is unclear whether his words will amount to a Mea Culpa similar to those pronounced by John Paul II back in 2000 for the sins of the Church over past centuries, including persecution of Jews and heretics.

Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, who heads the Vatican office for the clergy, sent a letter to bishops around the world in January, urging special prayer sessions for the victims of sexual abuse by priests.

Some Catholic lay groups say, however, that words and prayers are not enough, and have called on the Pope to personally meet with victims of priest abuse. [And what good would such a token meeting do - except to provide some victim-group advocates with a stage fior grandstanding - when he can obviously only meet with a limited number of representatives? What can victims tell the Pope that he is not already aware of - having been at the CDF and privy to complaints received at the Vaticam as well as the outcome of investigations that the Vatican itself has udnertaken on specific cases?]

Though it is not part of the official program of events, the Vatican has not ruled out such an encounter, and may be holding on to the option as a possible surprise stroke of spontaneity where the Holy Father's human contact might help assuage some of the lingering pain.

It will be important to follow closely both the words and any potential gestures to see if the reserved Pontiff manages to address the suffering of victims, and Catholics in general, with both sincerity and substance.

The American flock requires much mending. Kevin O'Toole, a lawyer and devoted churchgoer from Manchester, Vermont, says "there's still a disconnect" in the way top Church officials see the issue.

"They still don't get it," he said. "They are trying to do the right thing, but it's still a measured response. And I think the time for being measured is gone."

Like others, O'Toole says that senior Church officials, including bishops who transferred known abusive priests to other dioceses, have not taken responsibility for the crimes committed against children.

Some of those most directly involved with the issue remain deeply skeptical of a Vatican leadership they say has largely washed its hands of the pedophilia scandal, calling it an "American problem" and blaming the media for blowing it out of proportion.

David Clohessy, head of the SNAP sex abuse victims group, said the Vatican continues to lack real measures for combating sex abuse within its ranks.

"[Benedict] will totally avoid reference to the ongoing complicity and duplicity and recklessness of top church officials," he said "That's the scandal."

Clohessy also called on the Pope to use the U.S. visit to announce the extension of new Church policies for combating the problem worldwide, noting that even the measures taken by the U.S. Church, which he considers insufficient, are better than nothing.

"For 94% of Catholic kids on the planet," he said, "there's not even a pretext of a minimal set of standards for clergy sex abuse cases."

[Clohessy has very good PR, one must say. His is the only name that has been mentioned in all the reports about this issue in the past few days - so he gets all the money quotes. And what makes him think that the Vatican is not asking bishops and priests all over the world to be proactive in uncovering, combatting and preventing sex abuses by priests?]

Of course, for Benedict to win over American Catholics, responding to the crisis is just a start. Two open-air Masses, on April 17 at the Washington Nationals' baseball stadium and on April 20 at New York's Yankee Stadium will show the shy Pope is improving on the public stage.

With a reputation as a doctrinal hardliner, Americans may be pleasantly surprised that Benedict tends not to wag his finger at the faithful on these pastoral missions. But with the recent history in the U.S. church, he can focus on what's best in the American church only if he is sure not to avoid what is worst.