What to do when the Pope comes to America

Listen.

That’s the main thing—to listen to what he says…

Benedict is a soft-spoken teacher less given to dramatic gestures and inviting an intellectual attentiveness appropriate to his precision of expression. In a message given prior to his visit, he announced the theme of the visit: “Christ Our Hope.” The entirety of his being is animated by the desire to propose to the Church and to the world that Jesus Christ is, as he said of himself, “the way, the truth, and the life.”

Remember, his first encyclical was a great theological examination of the most fundamental truth, God is Love. Benedict says so much in so few words.

“Christ Our Hope” may strike some as a narrowly, even exclusively, Christian theme. But, as I expect he will make clear in his address at the United Nations and in the meeting with leaders of world religions, the theme is universally applicable. Christ is the logos—meaning both word and reason—which encompasses the whole of humanity. This is a constant in Benedict’s teaching. Remember the September 12, 2006, address at the University of Regensburg. Many commentators speak of Benedict’s gaffe in that lecture when he addressed the dynamic of violence in Islam and declared that to act against reason is to act against “the nature of God.” I do not think it was a gaffe at all. It is a necessary challenge and has, in fact, resulted in more irenic statements from Muslim leaders that could lead to something like a genuine dialogue between Islam and what Muslims, more than many Westerners, view as the Christian West. This emphasis on universal reason will be evident also, I expect, in his statements on human rights at the U.N., rights that are premised upon the dignity of the human person—a teaching that is the immovable foundation of Catholic social doctrine.

Fr. RJN will be offering these insights throughout the week with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN. I will be covering the papal visit to America for Relevant Radio, and blogging daily from Washington, when there’s a moment. Both Neuhaus and Arroyo will be guests on my show, along with a weeklong lineup of scholars, educators, authors, journalists, students, seminarians….those who will help us listen, and better hear what Benedict says to the Church and the world.