By Gary Stern
Journal News
April 22, 2008
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008804220360
Reviewing Pope Benedict XVI's American journey with hindsight, the papal agenda could have looked like this:
A. Introduce Benedict to America as warm, friendly and gracious - without going overboard or trying to make him into something he's not.
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| Joyful moment: Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd before Mass at Yankee Stadium. Photo by Mark Vergari |
B. Celebrate the success of Catholicism in America and of America itself, but warn of the dangers to faith that are presented by relativism, secularism and materialism.
C. Face the fallout from the clerical sex-abuse crisis directly and on his own terms.
Through three days in Washington and three in New York, Benedict repeatedly hammered home points B and C and, through it all, appeared to accomplish point A with little trouble.
"I don't think we knew him before this," said the Rev. James Gardiner of the Garrison-based Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, who provided media commentary on several papal events. "I think now we have some insight. He may seem to have a hard shell, but there is something warm and bright just below the surface. We got glimpses of it. He's not the type to wade into crowds. That's not him. He's not interested in being a crowd-pleaser, but acknowledges the crowd in a serious way."
Benedict was predictably formal in most settings, reading from texts in a German-accented monotone. But he picked his spots to drop his papal guard.
He spoke in a personal way to priests and nuns at St. Patrick's Cathedral. He touched the faces of disabled youngsters inside St. Joseph's Seminary. He shook hands with screaming teens from the great stage behind the seminary. He prayed with people who suffered through 9/11. He likely looked into the eyes of sex-abuse victims when he met with them privately.
It appeared to be enough to win over the great crowds that trailed him wherever he went, especially when he waved and raised his arms overhead in the popemobile.
"I think he realized the importance of this trip, that people are getting to know him on a personal level," said Rob Astorino of Mount Pleasant, station manager and program director for the Catholic Channel on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, who briefly interviewed the pope Saturday. "The throngs on Fifth Avenue and at the seminary were so vibrant, it was amazing. When I met him, he was very gentle, very happy."
The papal visit was rich in meaning, but that meaning will vary greatly for different audiences, said John Allen, a high-profile Catholicism analyst, who trailed the pope through the visit.
"For the typical American, who is dipping in and out on TV and probably knows as much about the pope as about the polygamists in Texas, Benedict has come off as kind, reaching out to sex-abuse victims and survivors at Ground Zero," he said. "He also came off as candid, not ducking the sex-abuse question."
For "Catholic insiders" - devout Catholics, those who work for Catholic institutions and others - the trip will be analyzed and cited for many years, Allen said.
Benedict's address to Catholic educators, for instance - in which he called on them to support academic freedom without endorsing positions contrary to Catholic teachings - will be quoted in speeches and books for a long time, he said.
Although the pope's mere presence was a powerful draw for many Catholics - he is believed to be St. Peter's successor - it will be some time before scholars can study whether American Catholics will take the pope's words to heart.
Benedict celebrated how America's religious freedom has allowed Catholicism to flourish. But he repeatedly warned that the future is uncertain, that subversive groups were trying to present relativism, secularism and individualism as worthwhile alternatives to traditional Christianity, as meaningful ways to seek freedom and liberation.
Be careful, he said over and over, or American Catholics and all Americans may go the way of Europeans - out of the churches.
Still, Benedict did not identity the sources of his concerns, those who "argue that respect for freedom of the individual makes it wrong to seek truth" or Christian communities that change "fundamental Christian beliefs and practices."
"As cardinal, he was a man of details," said Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in Union, N.J. "As pope, he seems to be more a man of principles. Can it be that he'll leave it to others to work out the specifics?"
Instead of pinpointing adversaries, Benedict's weeklong emphasis was healing and reconciliation, Bellitto said.
"The sex-abuse remarks and meeting with survivors combine as the centerpiece, of course, but so too was the power of seeing him pray at Ground Zero as well as what was, for me as an historian, the most remarkable moment: a Holocaust-survivor rabbi embracing a German pope in his synagogue a few hours before sunset on the Shabbat before Passover," Bellitto said. "Maybe God showed just how good a scriptwriter God can be."
Omissions? The pope did not address America's worsening priest shortage. He mentioned the contribution of immigrants, but the nation's heated immigration debate was only touched on briefly in a joint statement from the White House and the Vatican.
The Rev. Luke Sweeney, director of vocations for the Archdiocese of New York, agreed that the pope's overriding message was one of unity.
"Everyone thought that his style might be 'Get behind me,' but there is a great sense of humility about him," Sweeney said.
Standing in a packed corner of the Yonkers youth rally Saturday, where the lines for chicken fingers were 70 or 80 people deep, Sweeney said Benedict's style and message were getting the job done.
"He came here to energize and inspire the young people in their Catholic faith, and it's working," he said. "It feels like you're surfing on a tidal wave."
Mark Ricci, a 13-year-old from Holy Rosary parish in Hawthorne, didn't need to weigh Benedict's style or evaluate his message.
"I want to see him," Ricci said. "That's it. When do you get to see the pope?"
Reach Gary Stern at gstern@lohud.com or 914-694-3513.
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