I doubt if anyone can reflect and write as well about the remarkable visit of Pope Benedict XVI to our country, as has Richard John Neuhaus, in an article posted at First Things, from which here is an excerpt.
The Papal Week That Was
By Richard John Neuhaus
Monday, April 21, 2008, 7:51 AM
Triumphalism, as we all know, is a very bad thing. On the other hand, defeatism is worse. In any event, I am persuaded that the apostolic visit just completed was a triumph. As is probably evident from my earlier postings on the visit, as well as some of my comments on EWTN, I was not sure about that before the visit got underway, nor was I at all sure during the first days in Washington.
The theme that Benedict chose for the visit was “Christ Our Hope.” That determinedly Christocentric focus was sustained through these days. Permit me a brief word on the several events. The first was not on the official program. It was the news conference on the plane coming over. The first question, not surprisingly, was about the sex abuse crisis. Benedict’s response might be described in other contexts as a preemptive strike. By addressing the question so directly and candidly, and then doing that again in following days, he decisively put to rest all the speculation about how he would handle the matter, or whether he would touch it at all.
Of particular importance in this connection was the meeting with the five victims of priestly sexual abuse. That occasion was reminiscent of John Paul the Great’s meeting in jail with the man who tried to assassinate him in 1981. The authenticity of the encounter, Benedict’s listening, holding hands with the five one by one, and praying with them was powerful. This was movingly confirmed by the victims who spoke about the meeting afterward.
This encounter was in dramatic contrast with many statements on the subject by the American episcopacy since 2002, statements that too often were defensive in nature, statements of the “mistakes were made” variety. Again and again, it seemed that bishops here had legal and financial considerations in mind when they spoke on the scandal, and were seeking their own rehabilitation in the eyes of the public by talking incessantly about what they are now doing to “protect the children.” In fact, they have done a great deal on the last score, making the Catholic Church in this country probably the safest institution for children in the entire country.
What had been missing from the years of public statements was a clear articulation of the reality that is at the heart of being the Church—sin, repentance, and the grace of forgiveness. That was the essential note struck by Benedict. This does not mean, as some of our bishops have suggested, that we can now put the scandal behind us. But Benedict has pointed the way through the difficulties that lie ahead.
A moment of historic importance was the magnificent reception at the White House the morning after the pope’s arrival. The administration pulled out all the stops in a symbolic act of closure in the country’s tangled history of anti-Catholicism—or at least of suspicion about the place of Catholicism in our common life. Beyond that, it was a striking response to the larger question of what someone has called the naked public square—public life devoid of religion and religiously grounded moral discernment. In the concluding Mass in Yankee Stadium, Benedict spoke of the “false dichotomy” between Christian faith and the public square, as he did also in his address at the United Nations in New York. His several statements underscored the powerful symbolism of the White House reception. The image of the president and the pope on the South Lawn, along with what each said, deserves a prominent place in any honest history of the Republic.
