By Jean H Charles
Caribbean Net News
April 19, 2008
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-7285--6-6--.html
Pope Benedict XVI came to America to celebrate his birthday and his ascension to the throne of St Peter. Yet the official version of the visit called for the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Diocese of New York, Washington and Baltimore. Beyond these official pronouncements, the Pope has his own intimate agenda. As a modern St Augustine, Pope Benedict is featuring the United States in general, the American Catholic Church in particular as a model for the rest of the world to emulate.
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| Jean H Charles MSW, JD is Executive Director of AINDOH Inc a non profit organization dedicated to build a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com |
The shortcomings are enormous. Before his departure, and all through his remarks, he has defused the critics inside and outside the church by expressing his sincere and strongest outrage for the abuse inflicted on some 4,000 young people by the pedophile priests. The Catholic Church has paid dearly for that scandal. Some 2 billion US dollars and the desertion from the church have been the most pressing consequences.
Yet, in fact, the American Catholic church has become stronger. Never again a priest would engage in and a Bishop would condone repressive sexual behavior. I was moved on the first of Day of Lent to see such a large number of people in Manhattan who proudly went to church to take and exhibit the ash on their front, reminding us all that we are dust and we shall become dust.
Soon after his ascension as a Pope, Benedict turned his attention to Europe as the leading force to foment an assault against the elevation of secularism and materialism as the corner stone of acceptable modern behavior. He was rebuked not only by his home country, Germany but also by France and by his host nation, Italy. Taking a cue from Jesus the Christ and his directives to his disciples: "if someone turns his back on you while you try to help him out, go to the next person..."
Pope Benedict is German, the Germans love the Americans. They were gracious enough to help in the rebuilding of Germany after the destruction of the Nazi regime. In addition the American Catholic Church is the most generous one on earth. It has saved the Vatican from bankruptcy some two decades ago. Pope Benedict is finding fertile land in the United States. Its belief in manifest destiny, as well as its motto: "in God we trust "are soothing thoughts for the Pope. America could become the model to follow in bringing more people and more nations into the kingdom of God.
President George W Bush, albeit a Methodist, has been dubbed the first Catholic US President. His welcoming remarks "an awesome" speech (that did not receive appropriate credit from the media) could have been a page written by the Vatican speech writers: "America rejects the dictatorship of relativism... all human life is sacred and necessary."
Pope Benedict reminded us that America has been able to make a perfect marriage between faith and reason. The founding fathers have created a staunch division between church and state. That barrier has made the Church and the State stronger.
The Pope loves the fact that America does not hide behind the bushes to treat, debate and postulate about thorny ethical issues of life such as abortion, medical ethics, immigration, euthanasia, AIDS etc. The religious roots of the American psyche are deep and strong, the Puritans, the Quakers, later the Episcopalians and the Black Churches have all added a layer of morality that find its place in the public debate about the res politica.
The Pope's visit to New York City is also a testimony for his love for this metropolis, which is the quintessential American city. There, live in peace the Jews and the Gentiles, the Shiites and the Sunnis, the Palestinians and the Israelis, The Chinese and the Tibetan, the Kikuyu and the Menu of Kenya. All the people of the same land who are fighting each other in their homeland have found in this sacred land of New York City an umbrella of hospitality large enough to forgo the negative practices of fratricide. The City is run by a billionaire debonair Mayor who agrees to serve with zeal and diligence for the modicum sum of $1.00 per year.
Pope Benedict would like to see this model replicated in all the major metropolis of the world. His remarks to the United Nations have extended the concept of human rights to include education, actualization, dignity and cooperation between nations.
Yet I have my own concern about an unreported issue about the Catholic Church. The negative side of the Catholic identity is troubling. My own empirical observation has indicated that most Catholic countries have developed a culture of divisiveness and accepting the squalor of poverty as a fait accompli. (In the United States we find that culture in the most Catholic cities: New Orleans, St Louis and Chicago) This ethos is spread from Rwanda, Africa, where nuns and priests were involved in repressive genocide, to East Timor a small Catholic enclave in Muslim Indonesia, to Haiti in the Western Hemisphere where a former priest president has sown the seed of hatred so deep that social convulsion keeps stirring up the path towards democracy and development.
I hope Pope Benedict will initiate some soul searching amongst the Roman Catholic intelligentsia to pierce the veil of that culture so close to the Italian ethos. The Muslim Imams have also their task in curing the world from the culture of self destruction by those so- called martyrs who blow up themselves to enter into paradise in complete disregard of the concept of self preservation so unique to Homo sapiens.
Solving these thorny issues will certainly bring us closer to a better universe where the church, the society and the governments work together and in their own capacity to help each child of God enjoy this beautiful world.
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