Papal Conquest, Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 23, 2008

Papal Conquest

Philippine Daily Inquirer
April 23, 2008

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/editorial/view/20080419-131468/Papal-conquest

MANILA, Philippines—By going to America, Pope Benedict XVI achieved several targets in a papacy (now on its third year) viewed along the line of his German virtue of tight and effective management. For one, he has shown that like his globetrotting predecessor, he can just as well lap up miles to show that the institution he heads is indeed "catholic" or universal; that as head of this institution that's both visible and invisible, he could be present everywhere, like the Church that was sent by its founder, Jesus Christ, to all the ends of the earth.

Benedict may not be as mediagenic as John Paul II, but in choosing to make the United States the site of his first papal visit outside Europe, he has—again with sound German calculation—multiplied exponentially the visibility of the papal office. In other words, he knew how to tap into Hollywood in order to achieve the second aim of his visit—to broaden media coverage of the Church with the US trip as his platform before the world.

Of course, the wide media coverage came with some risks: there were protests from groups fighting for victims of clerical sexual abuse. To his credit, Benedict handled the protests well. Brushing aside papal protocol, he allowed himself to be "ambushed" by the press on the sensitive topic, and he responded with a very touching sound byte: "No words of mine can describe the pain of abuse." And surprising everyone, he met with the victims, extending to them papal solicitude, blessing and comfort.

Despite the protests, the Pope's American trip has become a resounding success. He came, he saw, he conquered, affirming the Church as a moral force for the world. US President George W. Bush, of course, had seen this, that's why he personally welcomed the Pope—an unprecedented gesture by any American leader—somehow highlighting his faithfulness to pontifical cultural prescriptions; after all, he had appointed enough conservative Supreme Court justices thus making the abolition of the abortion law a very distinct possibility in the years to come; and he had set limits on stem-cell research.

But whether Bush likes it or not, the visit is really a double-edged sword; it also puts in sharp focus the fact that the American invasion of Iraq is a folly and a quagmire, as the Holy See—even in the days of John Paul II—had warned him. Benedict could only reiterate the Holy See's stand on Iraq, though he surely provided Bush an excuse before the more militant sector of his constituency should he finally decide to extricate America from a costly, terrible and increasingly unpopular war.

To some extent, the Pope may have also succeeded in realizing the grand dream of his pontificate: to reaffirm and restore the Christian roots of Western Civilization in a post-Christian Europe by encouraging the spread of "culture wars" from the United States to Europe. As "The World in 2008" of The Economist notes, "the culture wars that have dominated American politics are gradually going global .... With most of the big economic debates settled ... politics is focusing on cultural issues—such as the importance of the family on society. That is giving a fresh role to the West's traditional cultural warrior, the Catholic Church."

And "cultural martialism" was very much evident in the Pope's address to the United Nations in New York, the third and most important target of his US visit. Against the backdrop of the Church's "wounds and scars" from the US cultural wars, the Pope stressed that all "cultural" issues are moral issues. And echoing the 16th-century Dominican friar Francisco Vittoria, the father of international law, Benedict insisted that the basis of international law and human rights is the natural law written in human hearts across cultures and ideologies, not secularism, or materialism.

In speaking out boldly against violations of human rights, including those of the unborn and the poor, and in exalting peace and freedom of worship and conscience, the Pope has shown that there are moral absolutes that can never be wilted by cultural relativism.

Might doesn't make right was the Pope's strong message to the superpowers and the secular forces of the world. It's a message that Stalin didn't comprehend when he scoffed—"How many divisions does the Pope have?"—at the Church's condemnation of his authoritarianism. And it's a message, buttressed by 2,000 years of moral weight and spiritual authority, that continues to ring even louder in the new millennium.