Wednesday at the White House, speak at the United Nations on Friday and visit the site of the 2001 terror attacks at the World Trade Center on Saturday. He will celebrate Mass in two baseball stadiums, the Washington Nationals Park on Thursday and Yankee Stadium on Saturday.
More than 20 percent of Americans are Catholic (65 million of 300 million), but only four of every 100 South Carolina residents, or 4.2 percent, belong to the church. But even in this predominantly Baptist state, the pope’s visit could have tremendous implications.
“You better believe it,” said the Rev. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. “I think you’re looking at one of the two most influential Christian figures in the world today, the other being Billy Graham. … He’s more than a figurehead. He’s a very thoughtful person with a global perspective.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, has always been known as a deep thinker, striving to reconcile modern thought with orthodox Christian doctrine.
“I think what Benedict brings is a profound understanding of the relationship between faith and reason that our culture has lost; that faith is reasonable,” said Stephen Gajdosik, the media relations officer for the Catholic Diocese of Charleston. He planned to see the pope on the White House lawn. “I think our culture wants to posit a lot of false dichotomies, black or white. If we applied reason to the whole political maelstrom right now, we would find our way to solutions much more quickly.”
Monsignor Martin Laughlin, diocese administrator, also praised the pope’s ability to bridge the gap between secular and religious.
Nice words, Canon Harmon. My biggest Christian heroes for most of my adult life have been Pope John Paul the Great and Billy Graham (santo subito!). Pope Benedict is getting pretty close to that level. JPII wrote about Faith and Reason, and Benedict, to my mind, lives it out.
It’s a wonderful time that God has given us giants such as these.
It’s notable how much better is the coverage of the papal visit by Dave Munday in the unsung Charleston Post and Courier than that in the much more influential Washington Post (found above). The whole tone of the report is far more objective and positive. And I join Words Matter in celebrating the apt words about this much-maligned pope by Canon Harmon+.
The man so many feared or despised as “God’s Rotweiler” when he was the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog has turned out, as pope or “Papa” to the world’s many millions of Catholics, to be “a German Shepherd.” But he is a great gift to the entire Christian church. Thanks be to God for Benedict XVI.
David Handy+
Actually, Rottweiler’s can be delightful dogs; I’ve just been playing with mine, who is more of a spoiled rotten weiler.
However, Papa Ratzinger was never anything but what he is: a gentle, kind pastor. Heavens! Before becoming pope, he used to slip out and play bocce ball at the local parish with the other old men. That’s when he wasn’t marrying their children or baptizing their grand babies.
The problem is that his job was adjudicating the work of theologians, determining which were authentic reflections of the Catholic Faith, and which were off the beam. The world doesn’t like that: it loves the titillation of theological speculation, especially that which undermines the Faith and hates whoever or whatever stands in the way of it’s entertainment.