Rosemary Radford Reuther vs. Bush / Benedict

Perhaps to provide "balance" to the generally positive commentary at the "Papal Discussions" blog, the New York Times felt compelled to roll out feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Reuther:

For both Bush and Benedict XVI, sharp attacks on women’s reproductive rights, not only access to abortion, but also contraception and family planning, have been key aspects of what they regard as infusing and informing public policy by Catholic or Christian views. While America is in no immediate danger of losing its principles of freedom of religion, Americans should think carefully about how the attitudes of one religious tradition should shape public policy and inform American identity.

Must every attempt to protect the unborn be construed as the draconian imposition of religious dogma on nonbelievers? It's called the "natural law" tradition. Moral truths accessible to every human being, independent of divine revelation. Check out C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man for starters.

Or perhaps George Weigel (responding to similar arguments from self-styled "pro-choice Catholic" Senator Kerry):

"This is simply false. The Church's pro-life teaching is something that can be engaged seriously by anyone. You don't have to believe that there are seven sacraments to deal with this, you don't have to believe in the primacy of the bishop of Rome to engage this position. You don't even have to believe in God to engage this [pro-Life] position because it's a position rooted in basic embryology and in basic logic, and anybody can engage that."

A point Weigel discussed in detail in "Christian Conviction & Democratic Etiquette" First Things Issue 41, (March 1994): 28-35):

But how are we to make our case to those who do not share that prior religious commitment, or to those Christians whose churches do not provide clear moral counsel on this issue? And how do we do this in a political-cultural-legal climate in which individual autonomy has been virtually absolutized?

The answer is, we best make our case by insisting that our defense of the right to life of the unborn is a defense of civil rights and of a generous, hospitable American democracy. We best make our case by insisting that abortion-on-demand gravely damages the American democratic experiment by drastically constricting the community of the commonly protected. We best make our case by arguing that the private use of lethal violence against an innocent is an assault on the moral foundations of any just society. In short, we best make our case for maximum feasible legal protection of the unborn by deploying natural law arguments that translate our Christian moral convictions into a public idiom more powerful than the idiom of autonomy.

Newsweek: "Benedict incapable of dealing with "messiness of human life"

Perhaps in some skewed attempt to appear "fair and balanced", or maybe just to placate their more liberal subscription base, the new issue of Newsweek publishes a reasonably good article by George Weigel ("How Benedict XVI Will Make History") AND an unbearably bad piece by senior editor Lisa Miller which actually manages to surpass prior examples of vitriol, stacking the deck of public opinion against the Holy Father and insulting Christians en masse:

Benedict is not the man for this job. His defenders know this, or his advance team of bishops, archbishops and theologians wouldn't have been out there spinning in the weeks before the papal visit, telling anyone who would listen how very, very kind and gentle the Holy Father really is. Feeling is not Benedict's strong suit. It's not just his unfortunate visage that puts people off, or his predilection for the more outré aspects of papal fashion (antique chapeaux and ermine-trimmed capes), or his decades employed as John Paul's theological enforcer. It's that Benedict is a Christian believer first and an intellectual second, a man who shows little comfort on the global stage with the messiness of human life and politics. The Rev. Keith Pecklers, a professor at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, recalls Benedict's early efforts to connect with the masses in St. Peter's Square. "He didn't know what to do with his hands," Pecklers says. "He doesn't naturally reach out and touch babies or anything."

In fact, one could argue that Benedict has been engaged in a lifelong battle against the supremacy of feeling—against the idea, so popular in America today, that feelings about God come from within. ...

Did I read that correctly? -- because Benedict is first and foremost a "Christian believer" and only secondarily an intellectual, he is incapable of dealing with 'the messiness of human life"?

Catholic New York - Recommended Historical Sites & Parishes

• Catholic New York's "pride of place" goes to St. Patrick's Cathedral, located on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets in New York City:

  St. Patrick's Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of New York, Edward M. Egan. It is the largest decorated gothic-style Catholic Cathedral in the United States and has been recognized throughout its history as a center of Catholic life in this country.

  The Cathedral was begun in 1858 by Archbishop John Hughes to replace the original St. Patrick's Cathedral, which in 1879 became -- and is still used today as -- a parish church in New York.

  "Old St. Patrick's" is located in “The Heart of Old New York” in the rapidly changing neighborhoods of Little Italy, Chinatown, and SOHO.

• St. Peter's -- New York's earliest Catholic church, dating back to 1785 when one priest served the city's 200 Catholics. The church's cornerstone was laid in 1785, and the first solemn Mass was celebrated in St. Peter's in 1786 -- nearly three years before George Washington — standing less than a mile away on an open-air balcony of Federal Hall (the nation's first capitol) — took the the oath of office as the first president of the United States. In 1800, it opened the first Catholic school in the state of New York.

• St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine @ Our Lady of the Rosary 7 State Street, New York, NY | GoogleMap - Elizabeth Ann Seton was founder of the Catholic parochial school system in the United States and The Sisters of Charity. She was heralded by Archbishop Kenrick as one who "did more for the church in America than all of us bishops together." In 1975 she was canonized in Rome as America's first native-born American saint.

• St. Francis Xavier Cabrini is the first United States citizen to be elevated to sainthood (1850-1970):

  Mother Cabrini has a double claim on our interest. Foundress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and pioneer worker for the welfare of dispersed Italian nationals, this diminutive nun was responsible for the establishment of nearly seventy orphanages, schools, and hospitals, scattered over eight countries in Europe, North, South, and Central America.

  The St. Frances Cabrini Shrine | GoogleMap which houses her remains is located at 701 Fort Washington Ave., overlooking the banks of the Hudson River and neighboring New Jersey.

• The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park | GoogleMap, which house 5,000 works of art, including the famed Unicorn Tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, saints' relics and paintings (view highlights):

  The building housing the collection is itself a work of medieval art. It is a composite structure, incorporating elements from five medieval French cloisters: Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Bonnefont-en-Comminges, Trie-en-Bigorre, and Froville. These disassembled European buildings were reassembled in Fort Tryon Park (1934/38) in a setting with gardens planted according to horticultural information culled from various medieval documents and artifacts.

• Church of Our Savior 59 Park Ave. at 38th Street is home to the Reverend George William Rutler, whom you might remember for his regular column in the now defunct Crisis magazine or appearances on EWTN. He was appointed pastor of Our Savior by Cardinal Egan in September, 2001. If you're looking for a good, solid orthodox-friendly mass in Midtown (no liturgical abuses and "funny stuff"), this is your place. George Weigel devoted a column to it in 2005 series "Catholicism's Great Places" -- on Fr. Rutler's commissioning for the parish of a twenty-four foot tall Christos Pantokrator based on the great icon of that style at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai. [Photo by Gerald Augustinus].
  

• Corpus Christi Church 529 West 121st Street, just east of Broadway | GoogleMap - famous in part for being the site of the baptism of Trappist Monk and Catholic mystic Thomas Merton in 1938 (author of The Seven Storey Mountain.

  Corpus Christi's website in fact maintains a page of quotes by Thomas Merton about their parish, including his recollection of the Mass, written in 1948:

  The words, songs, ceremonies, signs, movements of worship are all designed to open the mind and heart of the participant to this experience of oneness in Christ. One reason why I am a Catholic, a monk and a priest today is that I first went to Mass, and kept going to Mass, in a Church where these things were realized. . . . There was nothing new or revolutionary about it; only that everything was well done, not out of aestheticism or rubrical obsessiveness, but out of love for God and His truth. It would certainly be ingratitude of me of I did not remember the atmosphere of joy, light, and at least relative openness and spontaneity that filled Corpus Christi at solemn High Mass.

• Of historical interest to Catholic Workers and admirers of Dorothy Day, but probably not destinations for the regular Catholic tourist: The Catholic Worker newspaper headquarters are at St. Joseph's House at 36 E. First St. | GoogleMap. Dorothy Day herself is buried on Staten Island, in the Resurrection Cemetery, and lived her last years at Maryhouse, at 55 E. Third St. | GoogleMap, a "hospitality house" that still provides services to the poor.

The above list was compiled chiefly with the help of the Associated Press article: Catholic heritage in New York and Washington DC, mentioning a few sites worth visiting for "papal tourists."

To it I would have to add one of my personal favorites -- Church of St. Francis of Assisi | GoogleMaps -- located near Penn Station on 31st Street. Here's an apt description from the National Catholic Reporter:

Every weekday morning from crack of dawn on, thousands of people run, dawdle, drift or race up the escalators and stairs out of Penn Station, out into Manhattan, off to work. Add the New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority bus station crowds, and in a three-hour period hundreds of thousands of commuters, roughly 25 percent of them Catholic, converge on this part of New York City.

Coffee containers in one hand, bags and briefcases in the other, ignoring everything and everyone, the tidal wave of humanity funnels up West 32nd Street, with a smaller eddy along West 31st Street.

Either way, they pass an entrance to St. Francis of Assisi Church. Some on West 32nd Street turn sharp right into the church. Many just touch the head, heels or hands -- all burnished yellow from the gesture -- of the kneeling bronze statue of St. Francis in the little courtyard.

Others slip downstairs to attend one of the 13 daily liturgies -- the first at 6 a.m., the last at 5:30 p.m. -- or the popular 8:10 a.m. Liturgy of the Hours.

Where in the world (shrines apart) is there another church with no registered parishioners that has a pastor and 20 assistants, offers confessions 13 hours a day and utilizes 520-plus volunteers -- 250 for liturgical duties, 270 for social outreach? and has Br. Sebastian Tobin, a non-ordained friar, making sandals in the basement. This is a commuters' church such as is possible only in New York.

[...]

St. Francis of Assisi Church, one of the city's oldest, opened 156 years ago as a German parish. All that has changed in a century and a half is the nationality of the immigrants. German, Irish and Italian in the 19th century; in the 21st, Korean, Filipino, Portuguese, African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Central and Eastern European.

This church attracts the earlier immigrants (whose families have dashed up Penn Central steps for two, three and four generations) to pray -- and they help out the new immigrants. The friars provide the essential spiritual and social services in between.

To the New York archdiocese, St. Francis is a parish. To the Franciscans, it's a "service church," a mission of the Manhattan-based Franciscan Holy Name Province that covers the U.S. East Coast.

When I first moved to New York (almost a decade ago) I used to live on 30th street, and hence became a regular attendee -- nowadays if I'm in the area I'll still go back, either for confession (tell me, where else can you find the sacrament of reconciliation available practically all day long?) or to take in their mass, situated underneath a beautiful, awe-inspiring mosaic of the Holy Mother crushing the dragon with her heel, surrounded by Francis, St. Clare and the rest of the saints.

Catholic New York Resources:

• I don't mind a reverently celebrated Novus Ordo myself, but if you prefer that of Blessed Pope John XXIII, see Ecclesia Dei
• U.S. Catholic Parishes Online Directory and Mass Times [or] Archdiocese of New York Parish Finder
• Catholic New York Diocesian newspaper.
• Q: what is a good parish in the New York City area to go for Mass? - Discussion at Amy Welborn's (old) blog. April 1, 2007.
• Pauline Books & Media 150 E. 52nd St. - run by the Daughters of St. Paul. Best place I know for good Catholic texts by and about Pope Benedict XVI, along with a host of others.

NOTE: I've only been to Washington DC once, and that was decades ago on a family outing with the parents. Consequently, I'm hoping DC Catholic bloggers -- I don't want to put any on the spot, so I won't name names -- might tackle something similar in preparation for the Pope's visit.

Likewise, if any resident New York Catholic bloggers want to add their "recommended "Pope-friendly" parishes" (I've already received inquiries as to such), feel free to do so in the combox below.

"The Pope comes to America" -- John Allen, Jr. and George Weigel

Transcript: "The Pope Comes to America" Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. April 1, 2008:

Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to the U.S. as pontiff comes amid a turbulent election year. He has planned stops at the White House, the U.N. and the Sept. 11 “Ground Zero” site. How should we assess the first three years of Pope Benedict’s papacy? How has the global role and influence of the papacy changed under this pope? How has the Vatican’s relationship with the U.S. Catholic Church changed over the years, and what is its current state? What are the political implications of this trip?

To discuss these issues, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life invited John Allen, Vatican correspondent at National Catholic Reporter and Vatican analyst for CNN and NPR, and George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow with expertise in Vatican issues at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Vatican analyst for NBC News.

Probably the single best assessment of the Pope's visit to date, by two very knowledgeable Catholic commentators.

Well worth reading.

Pope to receive a Rose Garden Reception from President Bush

• The Bush administration is organizing a "unique'' Rose Garden ceremony as it finalizes plans for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI next week, reports Mark Silva of the Baltimore Sun:

  "There is great excitement throughout the staff regardless of one’s religious affiliation,” says White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin. “This is a very special day.”

  Hagin, together with Anita Bride, the first lady's chief of staff, held a roundtable discussion with members of faith-based media to give an inside look at the White House preparations. “As a Catholic,'' McBride said, "this is an enormous honor for me and a privilege to work on some small aspect of this visit.''

  The staff has prepared a ceremony that reflects the usual details reserved for heads of state, together with “very appropriate and warm additions.” McBride notes that nearly 10,000 people will attend the ceremony surrounding the pope's arrival on the South Lawn on Wednesday.

  A number of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts will be present during the ceremony, along with members of Catholic Charities and community volunteers. The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps will don their Revolutionary regalia for a presentation during the ceremony and will honor the Holy Father with the 21 gun salute, a typical gesture for a visiting head of state.

• The Rhode Island Catholic reports that President and Mrs. Bush have invited two priests from the Diocese of Providence, Monsignor Paul Theroux and Father Bernard Healey, to be among those who will join the President for the arrival ceremony:

  “It is a tremendous honor to join the President of the United States in welcoming the Holy Father to the United States,” said Father Healey. “Pope Benedict XVI is only the second Pope to visit the White House, making this a truly historic event. The Holy Father’s visit presents a unique time in which Catholics throughout Rhode Island and the country may strengthen their faith in Christ and the Church.”

• USA Today reports that President Bush is throwing a dinner in honor of Pope Benedict XVI. There's just one wrinkle: It doesn't include the pope.

• Cardinal Martino has taken it upon himself to inform everybody that Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to the White House to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush does not signal Vatican support of the Bush administration's foreign policies:

  The cardinal spoke to reporters April 11 during a break in an international conference on disarmament sponsored by the Vatican council.

  "The pope and the Holy See cannot renounce with one visit all the Holy See's positions of rejecting war, always encouraging dialogue to smooth over disagreements and fostering cooperation," he said.

  He said the argument that U.S.-led troops have to remain in Iraq in order to bring security and protect the Christian minority is open to question.

  "Obviously the main error was to start a war, a second war" after the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, he said.

  But whether it is wise to keep troops in Iraq is "a very difficult judgment" to make because some analysts say "the daily slaughter that unfolds in Iraq" is rooted in the continued presence of foreign troops, said the Italian cardinal.

  I honestly don't know who is making that assumption at this point in time. Not even from the so-called "Catholic neoconservatives" like Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel or Michael Novak -- who simply state that there is a lot more to the U.S. / Vatican relationship than the dispute over Iraq; like their mutual agreement on a broad range of life issues, where our President does see "eye to eye".

"Recruiting the Pope as a leader in the War on Terror"?!?

"Americans warm to Benedict—but they won't like everything he says" -- so says The Economist ("Don't all hug him at once" April 3, 2008), referring in particular to "Catholic conservatives":

But is it the real Benedict conservative Americans are hugging tight, or a caricature of him that they have sewn together? People are arguing already about the meaning of his appearance at the United Nations on April 18th. For liberals, this may be the time when the visitor gives right-wing admirers a cold shower by reminding them of the Vatican's opposition to the Iraq war.

Moreover, they point out, Benedict is a defender of a Catholic social doctrine, and an economic world-view, that in American terms sound quite socialist. And he will surely use his UN address to affirm his support for the world body, and more generally for multilateral diplomacy. “It's a stretch for the neoconservatives to recruit the pope as the leader of the war on terror, and it's also a stretch to associate him with the uncritical acceptance of capitalism,” says Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal.

Trust me, conservatives like George Weigel and Fr. Neuhaus are well aware that Ratzinger, along with his predecessor, has disagreed with them on going to war with Iraq. However, conveying an appreciation for Benedict's emphasis on respect for religious pluralism by Muslims and denunciation of religious violence hardly constitutes an attempt to "recruit the Pope to head the war on terror."

Among the views which the Economist perceives as being offensive to Catholic conservatives is Benedict's hope for "a reformed Islam as a potential ally in challenging the 'dictatorship of relativism'".

The Economist might be suprised to learn that leading "Catholic neocons" Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel and Michael Novak are no strangers to this hope. On the idea of Islamic renewal, Fr. Neuhaus has stated:

Yet more troubling is the message that Islam, in order to become less of a threat to the world, must relativize its claim to possess the truth. That plays directly into the hands of Muslim rigorists who pose as the defenders of the uncompromised and uncompromisible truth and who call for death to the infidels. If Islam is to become tolerant and respectful of other religions, it must be as the result of a development that comes from within the truth of Islam, not as a result of relativizing or abandoning that truth.

While some have posited the need for a "Muslim Luther", Weigel envisions someone along the lines of the Muslim equivalent of Leo XIII: "... a religious leader who reaches back into the deeper philosophical resources of his tradition in order to broker a critical agreement with Enlightenment political thought, and to shape his tradition's encounter with the economic and political institutions of modernity" (see Faith, Reason & The War Against Jihadism). And Michael Novak has entertained similar idea in The Universal Hunger For Liberty: Why the Clash of Civilizations Is Not Inevitable (2004).

Related

• George Weigel, Micheal Sean Winters and the "McBrien Prize in Really Inept Vaticanology" April 1, 2008.

George Weigel, Micheal Sean Winters and the "McBrien Prize in Really Inept Vaticanology"

"Americans are still from Mars, and Europeans -- including Vatican foreign policy officials -- are still from Venus", pronounces Sean Winters in Not Eye to Eye: Wholly Different Angles on the World (Washington Post March 30, 2008).

It turns out that on everything from U.S. foreign policy in Iraq ("Pope Benedict XVI will show how much his worldview differs from President Bush's when he denounces the continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq before the U.N. General Assembly") to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to economic development ("[the Vatican] insists on Third World debt relief, but also wants to address the worrisome cultural and spiritual consequences of the West's luxurious decadence") to the United Nations itself ("U.S. ambivalence (or outright hostility) toward the United Nations is not shared by our European and Vatican friends. [B]eyond that, nationalism is on the wane in Europe"), the United States and the Vatican simply exist on two different planes of reality.

To which George Weigel responds: "Michael Sean Winters [wins] the pole position in this year’s chase for the coveted Father Richard McBrien Prize in Really Inept Vaticanology^* (National Review March 31, 2008):

In my own conversations with senior Vatican officials over the past 18 months, I have been struck by the fact that the debates of 2002-2003 are over. That there was serious disagreement between the U.S. government and the Holy See prior to the invasion of Iraq is, and was, obvious. Today, however, the page has been turned, and despite what Winters’s Vatican leakers may be telling him, the people who make the decisions tell me, as they have told the Bush administration, that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster for both Iraq and the entire Middle East.

Pope Benedict will likely urge President Bush to demand that the Iraqi government be more assertive in defending the Christian minority population of Iraq; but that means more and stronger American involvement in the evolving politics of Iraq, not the end of an “occupation.” As for a papal “denunciation” at the U.N., Winters and his friends among Catholic Democrats are likely to be disappointed; Benedict XVI is far too shrewd to give fall campaign sound-bites to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton (either of whose victory in November would cause nightmares for the Holy See at the U.N. and other international agencies).

Moreover, the pope is coming to the U.N., not to give a pontifically guided tour of the world scene, praising this and lamenting that. In this 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he is far more likely to challenge the world body to take more seriously the moral truths that undergird the human dignity the U.N. was founded to defend — moral truths that can be known by reason.

On the question of the ongoing U.S. presidential election, Weigel mentions that not even the Vatican is immune to the spell of a certain charismatic senator from Illinois:

As a very senior Vatican official told me recently, the people who actually make the decisions in Rome know that the future is unlikely to provide an American administration as comprehensively sympathetic to core Holy See concerns in international arenas as the Bush administration has been. There is, alas, a kind of Obama swoon going on in at least some parts of the Roman Curia at the moment; but once the Illinois senator’s positions on the life issues and the nature of marriage come into clearer focus along the Tiber, the honeymoon will be adjourned, quickly.

Rather than stir up rivalries (real or imagined), it would be best for all to simply listen to what Benedict has to say during his visit:

Far from Jeremiah against the Great Satan Bush, Benedict XVI is going to teach the world a lesson about moral reason as the “grammar” by which the world can have a conversation about the world’s future. There are truths built into the world and into us, he will remind Americans and the U.N.; thinking together about those truths is one way to change noise into conversation and incomprehension into dialogue.

* Named for the Notre Dame theologian who memorably announced that Joseph Ratzinger couldn’t possibly be elected pope, less than 24 hours before Ratzinger was elected

Confounded Media grapples with the "mystery" of Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict still a mystery after 3 years as pope, says Gary Stern (USA Today March 23, 2008)

As Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to the United States nears, the most common perception of him could be boiled down to this:

He was pretty conservative before he became pope, wasn't he? He was old when he got the job. Since then, he's been kind of quiet. Doesn't seem real outgoing. He made a speech that angered Muslims. He brought back the Latin Mass, or something. And doesn't he wear Prada shoes?

On this Easter, as Benedict nears the end of his third year as pope, it's safe to say that he remains something of a white-robed enigma to most Americans — including Catholics.

"I don't think most people have figured him out, that's for sure," said the Rev. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic think tank in Thornwood, N.Y. "People may be scared away, since he is kind of an intellectual. A lot of people may not know how to get their hands around him."

As expected, we get the typical comparison of the "shy, bookish, academic" pope to his media-savvy predecessor:

Benedict is destined to be compared to the actor/poet/philosopher who preceded him as bishop of Rome. Pope John Paul II seemed to be conducting an orchestra wherever he went, with people of all faiths and no faith following his every move.

Benedict is more bookish. He tends to write and speak for those who follow Catholic life closely. And he's kind of shy.

"He's not the charismatic rock star pope that John Paul II was," said David Gibson, author of The Rule of Benedict. "Part of it is age — he was 78 when elected. But he also wants to lower the profile of the person of the pope. He doesn't want the pope to be the object of people's faith or veneration. He wants that to be Jesus. John Paul tried to draw people to the faith through his own faith, his own personality. Benedict wants to get out of the way, to present the faith and step aside."

as well as the pitting of his old persona as "Vatican enforcer" against the "kinder, friendlier" Pope:

As overseer of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger was Catholicism's warden on doctrine — nicknamed the German Shepherd, God's Rottweiler, a potential panzer pope (for a German tank), and on and on.

But that image has largely dissipated, giving way to something far less stark and, for many, less clear.

"All of that was something of a caricature to start with," said the Rev. Joseph Komonchak, a senior theologian at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. "But he has been far more collegial and accommodating than condemnatory. Temperamentally, he is a quiet person, shy, an intellectual. His main emphasis has been to draw Catholics back to what is central, what we have to offer the world, what we believe about Jesus Christ."

In the end, Benedict is made to fit the preconceived framework of "liberal" vs. "conservative":

If you want to see him as conservative, there's his Regensburg speech, his loosening of restrictions on the Latin Mass, a Vatican document restating the Catholic position that Protestant churches are not full churches, his approval of a policy that men with gay "tendencies" should not be priests, and his statement in Brazil last year that missionaries did not impose their beliefs on native cultures.

If you want to see him as surprisingly moderate, you can look to his many statements about protecting the environment, his meeting with dissident theologian and longtime nemesis Hans Kung, his desire to meet with Muslim leaders, and his overall desire to be a teaching pastor to all Catholics who want to listen.

Ignatius Press' Carl Olson responds (Benedict XVI, International Man of Mystery! Insight Scoop March 23, 2008):

There seems to be the notion, on the part of some folks, that a somewhat shy academic cannot also be a vigorous defender of the Faith as well as a personable and eloquent pastor of souls. Why are these so incompatible? Likewise, why is loosening the restrictions on the Latin Mass considered to a "conservative" act when it is actually a liberating/liberal act (in the best sense of those oft-abused words)? And isn't the desire to be a proper steward of creation who properly conserves natural resources and acts responsibly re: the material world a conservative action? Not, of course, if you use the typical American Political Lexicon for such things. And therein, I think, lies much of the problem: trying to force what is Catholic and oriented toward the permanent things into the cramped, narrow confines of sectarian ideology.

The "transition of Benedict from Vatican enforcer to 'Kinder, Gentler' Pope" meme does have some credibility, but like Olson I fear this approach adopted by the media is often employed to conceal their basic inability to grasp the fundamental points of Benedict's pontificate.

That said, I think that Gary Stern is certainly to be commended for putting together Westchester Journal-News' excellent website on the papal visit -- which is by leaps and bounds better than any other newspaper thus far.

• National Catholic Reporter's John Allen Jr., a long-time commentator on Pope Benedict and Vatican affairs, provides A "one-stop-shopping" guide to Pope Benedict's U.S. visit, which gives some background and context to the papal trip. He provides links to Benedict XVI's itinerary and to other resources. Mr. Allen will be accompanying Benedict XVI on the papal plane and throughout the trip, and will be filing regular news postings under his "Daily Updates" section of johnallen.ncrcafe.org.

• Scholar, pastor, enigma: German pope defies easy caricature - According to John Thavis, Catholic News Service (February 18, 2008):

  For many non-Christians, Pope Benedict is an enigma, a man who has visited a mosque and prayed toward Mecca with his Muslim host, yet who repeatedly speaks about the need to proclaim Christ as the unique savior for all people.

  He is hailed as a liturgical hero by traditionalist Catholics for having widened possible use of the Tridentine Mass and introduced touches of antiquity in his own liturgies.

  At a more basic level, the millions of Americans who do not follow church news very closely may know Pope Benedict simply as a soft-spoken bookworm who like cats and plays classical piano.

  The "real Benedict" no doubt has some elements of all these partial portraits, but in a combination that defies easy caricature. This is a pope who brings depth of thought to every word or action, in ways that are not entirely predictable.

  To his credit, Thavis brings in U.S. scholar and papal biographer George Weigel (author of God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church ), and Jesuit Father Christian W. Troll, a German professor of Islamic studies and a long-time friend of the Holy Father to help clear the air of intrigue. He closes the article with a decent biography and overview of Benedict's pontificate and highlights his many accomplishments. Worth reading.

Update:

• Man of Mystery! - Amy Welborn responds as well:

  The point is, claiming that “Benedict is still a mystery” doesn’t seem to me to be an assertion that belongs in a news article. It’s in the same category (or even worse) as claiming that “many believe” something without any evidence that, in fact, “many believe” that thing at all. (Just as the phrase “critics say” can function as a way of framing a story around a writer’s own opnion or agenda). I mean, how is “Benedict is still a mystery” a news story? Are there big questions being raised on Catholic blogs or in Catholic parishes or chanceries in which people are sitting around scratching their heads wondering, “Who is Benedict? I just don’t get him?” Are they publishing articles and holding meetings to address the mystery?

  To begin a news article with the assertion that “Benedict is still a mystery” is not, in fact, news reporting. It’s the creation of a thesis and then finding voices to support the thesis. It would be fantastic if, over the next month, journalists could get back to basics, stop trying to create stories and simply report: This is who Benedict is. This is what he writes about. This is what he talks about. These are the ideas that have formed his intellectual life and spirituality.

  Mystery solved.