A Papal Primer, from his national column, Amazing Grace

By David Yount

   Following her conversion to the Catholic faith, the celebrated playwright and congresswoman Clare Booth Luce was granted a private audience with Pope Pius XII. Not satisfied with polite conversation with the Holy Father, she proceeded at length to persuade His Holiness of the truth of her new-found faith.

   Exasperated, the pontiff finally interrupted. "Yes, yes, I know, Mrs. Luce," he said. "I'm a Catholic too."

   Around my house, we honor that reply. Whenever anyone states something obvious, we answer, "Is the pope a Catholic?"

   Well, the pope who is paying a visit to America this month surely passes that test. From 1981 until his election, Benedict XVI was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, charged with defining and safeguarding the Catholic faith. He is a traditionalist, who earned the reputation as a hardliner under John Paul II.

   Benedict, elected pope in 2005, will celebrate his 81st birthday during his U.S. visit to Washington and New York. He is the first German-born pontiff in more than a thousand years. Although he the Vatican's head of state, his visit to America is not a political event, but a religious one.

  Strictly speaking, he is coming at the behest of 350 American Catholic bishops and the 65 million baptized Americans who are Roman Catholic. Many offical visitors to the United States come with their palms extended, seeking favors. The pope will be pleased simply to stoke the fires of faith among all Americans.

   His appearances will be extraordinary media events. Tickets to his public appearances vanished as soon as they were offered. Such was the media demand that within hours press credentials had to be curtailed. Most reporters and commentators will have to cover the events as you and I do, watching television.

   The power of the papacy is chronically underestimated, because it does not consist of wealth or arms, but of morality. The only other world figure who can be compared to the pope is the Dalai Lama. Their power consists of their appeal to our better angels.

   Most Americans inherited their legacy of religious faith from Protestant forebears. For them, Catholic rites and customs can seem as impenetrable as those of Jews and Mormons. To be sure, when Pope Benedict preaches, it will not resemble the sermons of familiar evangelists like Billy Graham, who appeal to the need for personal salvation.

   Rather, the pope will seek to deepen the faith of those who already accept Jesus as their personal savior but are inclined to take their faith for granted. Benedict's is a more subtle appeal, but can be just as powerful.

       There is an expression, "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic," which attempts to explain why those who fall away from that faith cannot conceive of embracing another. Today, nearly one-third of Americans who were raised Catholic no longer practice the faith of their childhood. They are the sheep that this Good Shepherd will be seeking to rejoin the flock.

*Permission to reprint courtesy of Scripps Howard News Service.

David Yount is the author of How the Quakers Invented America, What Are We to Do? Living the Sermon on the Mount, and Be Strong and Courageous: Letters to My Children About Being Christian.  He has also authored Growing in Faith: A Guide for the Reluctant Christian, 2^nd edition (Seabury). A nationally-syndicated columnist with Scripps Howard News Service, Yount answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount@erols.com.