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	From the U.S., Head of VR English Section Shares Reflections on Church in the United States Vatican Radio April 17, 2008 http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=199805 The head of English programming at Vatican Radio, Sean-Patrick Lovett, is in the United States with the Holy Father, and shared with us his reflections on the Church that so happily receives Holy Father in these days Text Things are what you call them. The Pope talks about the "Church in America". In America, they talk about the "American Church". There's a difference. While there is only one Church (whether it's in America or wherever), the Church in every country does have certain characteristics that make it unique. And the Church in America is no exception. This isn't the time or place to launch into lengthy analyses (which have already been done, extremely well, in several prestigious books and publications). More modestly, I'd like to suggest 4 adjectives that give some clues at least to understanding the special nature of this American Church. First of all, it's big. Very big. It's the third largest Catholic community in the world, preceded only by Brazil and Mexico in terms of numbers of faithful. Which means it makes its presence felt, both inside the United States and beyond. Two: it's generous. Countless humanitarian, aid and assistance programs and initiatives around the world are sponsored or supported by American Catholics and related charities, agencies or associations. Three: it's varied. It's a melting-pot of cultures and ethnic groups representing dozens of different traditions. And this guarantees a richness and variety of faith and worship which is without parallel in any other national context. Four: it's changing. Rapidly and radically. If demographic and immigration trends continue at the present rate, then by the year 2050, half of the American Church will be Hispanic. So it's not only already multicultural, it's also largely bilingual. This is the Church Pope Benedict XVI addressed, through its pastor-bishops, at the National Shrine in Washington DC. He was responding to the President of the U.S. Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Francis George, who had just given voice to some of the major concerns of the American Church at the present time: political, religious, social, ideological and moral. The Pope didn't hesitate to respond clearly and concretely, returning to the sexual abuse issue in greater detail, setting it in a wider context of social and moral responsibility and calling for a "determined, collective response". And to the Church in America, the Pope launched a new challenge: to recapture the Catholic vision of reality and to present it in an engaging and imaginative way. For such a big, generous, varied and rapidly changing Church, that should prove to be no challenge at all. With the Pope in the United States, I'm Sean-Patrick Lovett.
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