Getting to Know the Pope

Polls showed that before Pope Benedict XVI arrived in the United States last week, most Americans had a favorable opinion of him, though even the majority of Catholics admittedly knew little or nothing about the pontiff.

But now, the pope's six-day journey has revealed him to Americans as a man whose affection breaks through his formality and who is passionate as well as intellectual. He did not come across as the sheep-cuddling shepherd some bishops had heralded, but rather as a protector who cared enough to take up his staff and confront the "very badly handled" clergy sexual abuse scandal and America’s "increasingly secular and materialistic culture."

His willingness to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis repeatedly, and right from the start of the visit on his flight to Washington, made a strong and positive impression.

"I think he's been very favorably received," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center in Washington. "The way he's grappled with the sex abuse crisis, meeting with victims of the abuse ... I think he handled it extremely well."

The 81-year-old former theology professor does not radiate the charm of the stage-trained Pope John Paul II, and he didn't really try to stoke the crowds' considerable enthusiasm. But he offered his toothy grin, tousled children's hair, impressed the sexual abuse victims he met privately in Washington and thrilled the relatives of Sept. 11 victims he saw after blessing Ground Zero yesterday. And in a warm, convivial scene, he became the first pope to visit an American synagogue.

His message to America, though hopeful, was harder-edged than predicted.

He asked the nation's Catholic bishops whether "our preaching lost its salt." At the White House, he called for "patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts" as he stood beside a president who had spurned the Vatican's call to deal with Iraq through the United Nations.
At an interfaith prayer service, he sidestepped the usual niceties about finding common ground and warned the assembled Christian leaders to ward off the forces of a secularized, do-your-own-thing religion.

"It was very forthright. It signaled a new level in the conversations," said the Rev. James Gardiner, director of the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center in Garrison and a veteran of interfaith activities. It said, "We're done with the nice stuff … I recognize some of the problems you have; I'm dealing with them myself."

To Gardiner, the turning point of the trip came even before Benedict arrived, when on his flight to Washington, he described his shame over the clergy sexual abuse crisis. That "changed his image," he said.

The public responded to Benedict "very warmly, and appropriately so," said Dan Bartley, president of Voice of the Faithful, an organization of lay Catholics urging reform in the church. "Whenever the pope visits the United States is a big moment for Catholics, and that's a good thing."

Bartley, a Hauppauge resident who attended the White House reception for Pope Benedict, said he was encouraged by what the pope had to say. "This is the first time that our church has acknowledged that our sexual abuse crisis was very poorly handled," he said, recalling a comment Benedict made to the bishops in Washington. " ...It's a start."

The pope's message was complex and often abstract; he never actually mentioned Iraq, for example. It was "more successfully read than listened to," and lacking sound bites or applause lines, Reese said. But it can be summed up in a metaphor the pope offered Saturday in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Benedict pointed out the beauty of the Gothic Revival cathedral's stained glass windows, "which flood the interior with mystic light. From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor."

The pope painted the outside world as a dark, uncomprehending place, "a world where self-centeredness, greed, violence, and cynicism so often seem to choke the fragile growth of grace in people's hearts."

His response was that only the mystical light of faith, found inside the church, could overcome a secular, me-first outlook that he saw as a threat to everything from international relations to Catholic colleges, the family, the unborn, the environment, fellow Christian churches and Catholic identity and devotion.

Another pope once famously used the image of church windows to make a different point: John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962, said the church's windows needed to be opened to let in some fresh air - a call to engage with the modern world.

If Benedict's metaphor implies an insular church, he made clear in his homily in Yankee Stadium that he was calling for greater engagement in the modern world, not a retreat.

He spoke about the familiar phrase "Thy kingdom come" in the Our Father. It "means working to enrich American society and culture with the beauty and truth of the Gospel," he said, "and never losing sight of that great hope which gives meaning and value to all the other hopes which inspire our lives."

Photos: Top, AFP/Getty/Lucas Jackson. Below, AP/Kathy Willens.