Getting to Know and Appreciate Pope Benedict

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

One of the best things to come from Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, April 15-20, will be that people will get to know him.

There’s a lack of awareness of who is for three reasons:

1.                  He follows Pope John Paul II who made headlines as he revolutionized the papacy. Before his election, the papacy had basically been a stay-at-home job. When John Paul with his fine stage presence set out globe-trotting, he captured the world’s imagination. With telecommunications, John Paul took the office public as no one before him. His is a hard act to follow.

2.                  Pope Benedict’s 24 years in his previous job, typecast him. He was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s faith and morals watchdog. He was arbiter of what was acceptable for theologians to write and teach. His statements were heard worldwide and often drew controversy. When he spoke of revealed truth, he was painted as a man wedded to the past. Despite his kindly nature, he was typecast as stern. Many made up their mind about him even before his election.

3.                  He is a scholar and introvert, not given to encourage a cult of the papacy around himself. He comes from the world of academia and of scholarship, where study, writing and thought are prized. He does not feel called to the stage, though he goes there when he must.

Those who know him, think many Americans will come to appreciate him when he journeys across the Atlantic. A recent survey reports he has an 80 percent approval rate. It will be even higher after his visit.

Pope Benedict, when he was elected, quickly told the cardinals inviting him to the United States that he wasn’t much into travel anymore. Doctor’s orders, he said, and his age. He was 79 then. Nevertheless, when he accepted the papacy he accepted all that comes with it, including his position as a world leader. When the United Nations Secretary General invited him to speak to the UN General Assembly, he accepted and prepared to bring his frequent call for peace, especially in the Middle East, beyond St. Peter’s Square, where he’s raised the subject many times. With his UN forum, people will see a man with a vision for peace rooted in respect for the intrinsic value of the individual. They will hear of the significance of faith and reason and his concern that often modern society is “deaf to the divine.” One can expect similar conversation when Pope Benedict visits the White House, the second pope to do so. John Paul visited there in 1979.

His only other civic engagement, so to speak, will be his visit to Ground Zero. The trip to what has become a national civic shrine expresses the pope efforts to touch and comfort the soul of America, which changed forever on 9/11. He will walk alone there, without crowds, an expression of oneness with the sense of inner loneliness sparked by the tragedy. True to his pastoral nature, he also will meet privately, one-on-one, for a few moments with those who know this loneliness most: first responders whose colleagues died and families mourning loved ones slain in the attack. The visit will reveal the deep caring and kindness of the man seeking to comfort both individuals and a nation.

Pope Benedict knew that he could not visit only the United Nations and its delegates. Having come so far, he knew he had to visit the 63 million Catholics as well as all the other people of the United States. With the aid of mass media, he will do that with trips to the Archdioceses of Washington and New York. In these archdioceses he will see people of every nation, in some ways, glimpse a picture of the entire world, and certainly of the entire United States.

After his visit to the White House, his first visit with the Catholic community will be at his meeting with the U.S. bishops at the Basilica of the National Shine of the Immaculate Conception. As chief shepherd of the church he can empathize with the bishops’ efforts to be spiritual leaders in a secular society. One can expect him to embolden the bishops in their efforts to bring religious values into what is more and more becoming an irreligious world.

The pope, a former university professor, will meet with heads of Catholic colleges and universities and diocesan education departments at The Catholic University of America in Washington. One expects he’ll feel at home with this primarily academic audience that is challenged not only to pass on secular knowledge but a Catholic vision imbuing it. This is second time a pope has invited Catholic higher education leaders to meet him at the university. Catholic university and college presidents were invited to his 1979 address at CUA.

That evening, the pope will meet with leaders of other religions, representatives of the Jewish, Buddhists, Islamic, Hindu and Jain communities. With concern for peace, especially in the Middle East paramount in his mind, the meeting will be one more opportunity to stress the role of religion in bridging the cultural divide at the root of many world conflicts. The following day, in New York City, the pope will meet with leaders of other Christian groups, an effort to shore up ecumenical efforts and to recognize the contribution that Christian groups have made in the shaping and serving the United States. Thanks to them, the United States boasts of a non-governmental educational, health care and social service systems second to none.

Among other meetings with the Catholic family will be a meeting with priests and religious at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In some ways, these are his troops, the men and women collaborators he relies on most to meet the needs of the Catholic community.     

As a pastor Pope Benedict also will meet with young people. They will be of all kinds, handicapped young people in the small setting of the chapel at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers; seminarians and young men and women in formation for religious communities; and young Catholics in general at a youth rally in the seminary grounds.  The former professor will be at home here and can be expected, like his predecessor, to challenge the youth to seek God’s will for them and strive to accomplish all they can with the talents God gave them.

Two stadium liturgies will be centerpieces of the visit – one at Nationals Park in Washington the other at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The pope, as any celebrant, will draw from the Scriptural texts of the Masses.  He is, of course, first of all a priest, albeit one with a worldwide parish, and he will offer words his people need to hear.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh is the editor of John Paul II: A Light for the World and From Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI: An Inside Look at the End of an Era, the Beginning of a New One, and the Future of the Church and is frequent commentator on church affairs. She is director for media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and an award-winning writer, whose work has appeared in both secular and religious publications.