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By Helen Alvare
When the Vicar of Christ comes to the United States in mid-April, when he mingles with leaders of Church or state, and with the throngs who assemble to hear him, what will our beloved professor pope see? Who does he understand us to be? How do we understand ourselves in light of the great themes and lessons of Catholicism, alongside our identity as Americans living at the dawn of the 21st century? How might the encounter with Pope Benedict XVI be shaped by both our current preoccupations and by our deepest questions about ourselves and the world around us?
If we think about these matters in advance, perhaps we will have a real "encounter" with our Holy Father. An "encounter" -- as I recall from my high school religion textbook -- requires that both parties are changed as a consequence of their meeting.
In the absence of this type of meeting, this great occasion of a papal visit could devolve into nothing more than a week or two of frenzied media reporting about "American Catholics versus the pope." All of which will more or less announce that while American Catholics are fond of the man, we firmly reject his anachronistic teachings on pretty much everything having to do with sex -- e.g., birth control, abortion, same-sex marriage, priestly celibacy and divorce and remarriage. Papal visits are also a cue for the media to start counting heads in seminaries, convents and Sunday Masses, while intoning that we just don't rack up the numbers like we did in the 1950s.
While it's impossible to predict the range or details of Pope Benedict's messages to us from April 15 to 20, it's not difficult at all to predict a few of his major themes. They have been part of the fabric of his life and work during the six decades he has been writing theology in service to the Church. They appear regularly in his encyclicals, addresses and personal interviews with different audiences.
Several of these themes appear tailor-made to speak insightfully to various "personality traits" and preoccupations characteristic of U.S. citizens and of our nation as but one member of the family of nations. Pope Benedict has shown during his yet-brief papacy that he is a skilled reader of the problems and opportunities of our age. At the same time he is -- in a way uniquely among world figures -- consummately "literate" regarding the intellectual and historical events and movements shaping the world today. He brings these two gifts together in his major addresses. To put it more bluntly, the pope will likely demonstrate insights into our national soul that are almost too accurate for comfort. At the same time, he will not fail to offer the person of Jesus as the reason for concrete hope. What follows is a discussion of several aspects of America's current situation, as described in terms likely to attract the attention -- and ministrations -- of Pope Benedict.
Perhaps the first thing anyone would "notice" about the United States is its size and power. This is true whether measured by global and military influence, how much we make and consume, our high standard of living, or our vast cultural reach.
It is quite likely that "being on top" is simply part of the average American's frame of reference. Thus, when we slip, when our economic battleship springs a few leaks, fear takes hold. Is the euro really becoming the preferred international currency? Are we actually approaching parity with (gulp) the Canadian dollar? My God, we think, what next: international aid from South America? (Oh right, that's already happening, courtesy of Venezuela sending oil to U.S. poor.)
Depending upon whose statistics you credit, we are either in, or about to be in, a recession. A recession of the kind that comes with job loss, stagnant home sales, and roller coaster rides on the stock market.
We are also becoming more painfully aware of our interdependent relationships with nations not always friendly to us. Our status as a world leader in the areas of science and technology is being directly challenged. And other very large and resource-rich nations are not standing still, but posting impressive development gains recently. They now compete directly with us for human and natural resources.
On a more personal level, individuals and families are struggling with their inability to discipline their spending. We have for so long succumbed to the slogans of our age -- "Because I'm worth it." "Just do it." "No down payment and no interest for two years." After Sept. 11, 2001, we were encouraged to "spend" our way out of the ensuing economic doldrums. We're quite unaccustomed to tightening our belts.
Meanwhile, our global ideological and military ambitions have been widely criticized or even rejected by many international leaders. And for all our sophisticated weaponry, we are again and again surprised and overcome by rough and ready combatants full of such hate that they will strap primitive weapons to themselves and to their children to kill us and one another.
All this is to say that we are having a sort of identity crisis about our present and our future. We have in the past appreciated the gifts and strengths of our siblings in the family of nations; we have showered resources upon others -- for disaster relief, AIDS research, food aid, etc. -- but we have done so regularly from a position of strength, self assurance, and presumed authority. Hated, loved, feared or even ridiculed for our relative youth and lack of "polish," we have been acknowledged to be in the forefront. So are we now? What does our future hold?
It would not be at all surprising if Pope Benedict looked upon us as Jesus looked upon the rich young man who, while he kept all of the commandments, was ultimately unwilling to loosen his grip on his many possessions. This is not to diminish at all our goodness or even our greatness, on the world stage. It is not to doubt our generosity.
It is rather to posit a vantage point from which we might begin to see our role in the world in terms of "service" rather than in terms of size.
In his recent meeting with Mary Ann Glendon, the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Pope Benedict explicitly praised what he viewed as the true greatness of the United States, which cannot be eroded by economic ups and downs. It is our witness to the truth and to one another.
Here, Pope Benedict referred to the principles embedded within our founding legal documents. There, we acknowledge that there exist unchanging moral truths, originating in the mind and reason of God, which may not be abridged by human beings. Government exists then to serve and preserve human life, and human equality and dignity. These moral principles -- which are still very much alive today -- are not lived with perfect constancy, but remain salient enough to continue today to attract people of all faiths and nations to come to the United States in order to live here together in peace and comfort.
Not surprisingly, then, in the United States, interreligious dialogue is not infrequent and is never incendiary. Ideals of interracial and ethnic equality and harmony are a staple of public law and discourse. These movements coexist and often overlap with the pursuit of religious liberty. It was recognized by our founders, and we acknowledge today, that a society in which religions are permitted to flourish side by side, without government favoritism or punishment, is a society in which both religion and the common good will thrive.
Pope Benedict might well contrast our current ideals with the embrace of an idea he calls the "myth of progress." This "myth" has been a favorite theme of Our Holy Father for many years. To subscribe to the myth is to believe that human society advances as a function of the march of time, alongside increased knowledge and control over the natural world and technology.
These beliefs are regularly accompanied by an explicitly reduced reliance upon God's reason and goodness. In the thought of Pope Bene-dict real progress, on the other hand, is growth in love of God and one other. It simply cannot be achieved even by means of human will, science, or even human reason closed to insights of faith. It cannot be inherited from the prior generation. Each generation, rather, making use of the gift of its free will, must open itself to the love of God and to the truth.
Pope Bene-dict might also hold up for praise our continuing struggles to protect life itself, as against abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research and capital punishment.
In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est ("God is Love"), he asks rhetorically whether Christianity insists upon our loving every human person. Without hesitation, he answers "yes." We owe to every human person the "the look of love they crave."
This is no more and no less than acknowledging the full truth about the human being, who is made in the image of a Triune God who lives in a community of perfect love. Every human person, in other words, is made from love for love.
The United States has more than its share of the capacity for living out this truth. It is seen in particular within its pro-life movement which remains remarkably vibrant 35 years after our highest court manufactured a "right" to virtually unlimited legal abortion. And it's a pro-life movement whose grit and intermittent successes continue to inspire similar movements within other nations. Like them, we are operating in an environment where our opponents regularly enjoy wealth, and high positions within politics, the media and the academy. But no matter that we attract the ridicule of many in high places, we do not cease our efforts.
On the subject of respect for life, Benedict may very well pose questions about the war in Iraq. Very recently, upon the occasion of the murder in Iraq of a brave bishop, Benedict cried out in unusually dramatic terms: "Enough with the bloodshed, enough with the violence, enough with the hatred in Iraq!"
With his own words, and via the interventions of Holy See diplomats at the United Nations, Benedict has urged all parties involved in Iraq to vigorously pursue another way, the way of peace. In his former role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as pope, he has reminded us not to abdicate the question of the justice of any armed conflict to political leaders alone. Benedict can offer his personal resources, and those of the Catholic Church, as a catalyst for dialogue and reconciliation between America and the West, and Islam.
On Jan. 1, in his message for the World Day of Peace 2008, Benedict wrote that the family is the "way of peace." He has written about the centrality of the family in society -- and of marriage as the foundation of the family -- often enough to assure these topics a place in any conversation he will have with the United States.
Our nation is, in fact, in the thick of a struggle over the shape and role of marriage and family in society. We have a firm grip on our "ideal": Strong marriages anchoring caring and compassionate nuclear and extended families, in which parents assume the primary responsibility for taking care of their children, and of other vulnerable family members. We aspire to marriages that last, marriages in which there is mutual respect and support between husband and wife. We seek to achieve both marital stability with equality between the sexes. We never tire of squabbling over what constitutes the very best educational system for our children. A critical mass of empirical studies produced over the last several decades is now calling into question the wisdom of easy divorce, serial marriages, single parenting, cohabitation, and the sexualization of our children, particularly our girls. Federal and state governments are spending not inconsequential amounts of money to support marriage, marital childbearing, and closer relationships between fathers and their children, especially in the poorest communities. Many states are hosting "marriage rallies," writing premarital preparation courses, and urging abstinence for the unmarried.
And yet, the host of "bad statistics" about the family continues to grow. Just recently, we learned that one out of every four teenage girls carries a sexually transmitted disease. We know that nearly 40 percent of our children are born outside marriage. That 52 percent of Americans are cohabiting before marriage, a practice closely correlated with later divorce. Our divorce rate still hovers over the 40 percent mark, leaving over one million children each year newly separated from their parents' joint home.
We are more than flirting with the idea that marriage has nothing to do with children, but is rather about obtaining a more or less legally enforceable relationship with our "soul mate," accompanied by a host of public benefits. Courts and legislatures recognizing a public status for same-sex relationships have describe their efforts, in fact, as a response to the rights of "individuals" to social approval for their lifestyle choices.
At the root of this -- and perhaps as an extension of our will to dominate nature -- many American seem completely disinclined to see any relationship between what we do with our bodies, and the meaning of our lives. We decry the betrayal of love (and law) when a prominent politician makes elaborate financial and travel plans to betray his wife with a prostitute. But we are far less clear about what's at stake when an average citizen, or even our own child, becomes sexually intimate with another person, while denying or ignoring the need for a commitment.
Benedict reminds us in Deus Caritas Est and elsewhere that the love between a man and a woman is intended to reflect God's love for every human being. A love characterized by the closest possible communion, which is faithful, unconditional, exclusive, and fruitful. If we distort this, if we understand love as sensation only, as eros only, as a taking and a getting only, we have failed to understand love as God has fashioned it. In the person of Jesus, God has revealed love also to be service, sacrifice, and a will to bring about the good of the other. At the beginning of Deus Caritas Est, Benedict asks rhetorically: has Christianity "blown the whistle" on love, on sex, just at the moment when the human person might have experienced it as "divine"? "No," he answers. Christianity has purified, disciplined, elevated and clarified the "love" that is sufficient for our dignity as human beings.
In the United States, the Catholic Church has been willing to speak out repeatedly about the crisis of marriage and the family. She has many religious companions on this and other public matters. It is often noted, and it is true, that religious voices feel particularly free to speak up in the United States.
Commentators often contrast our situation with the situation prevailing in several Western Europe nations, despite Europe's historically deeper Catholic roots. Part of the situation of the U.S. Catholic Church in this regard is likely due to the "natural law" credentials of Catholicism. Catholic speakers are able to communicate moral truths in language accessible to all human persons of good will.
Taking advantage of our religious liberty, we have built successful and large-scale educational, health care and charitable institutions. Catholics are numerically well- represented at most levels of government. It has not escaped attention that five out of nine Supreme Court justices identify themselves as Catholic. We are also a relatively affluent group. And the newest cohort of Catholic immigrants, our Hispanic brothers and sisters, are proving themselves willing to take up whatever work is available to begin their integration into the American society. As Catholics, finally, it appears that we have a place at the table in most national debates about poverty, race, religious pluralism, health care and other social issues.
As time has gone by, however we have seen the costs of our assimilation. Some Catholic academic and health care institutions, and many visible Catholic politicians, seem to be afraid of appearing "out of step" with whatever is passing for "freedom" and "progress." We don't want to be identified with pro-lifers waving signs; with opposition to "academic freedom"; with the pseudo-feminist demand for the "morning-after" pill.
Too often, we want to assure our "peers" in the academy, medicine, science and politics, that we "get it." We forget who our real "audiences" are: our God and our fellow human beings, struggling to live in a world where the whole truth about the meanings of "progress," "equality," "freedom" and "success" are so hard to come by. As the gap grows wider between Catholic ideals and social practices -- how will we find the courage to continue to say what needs to be said?
Pope Benedict will very likely remind us that we must return to the Source for this strength and to the practices and institutions which have made Christian life possible and continuous down the centuries: the regular encounter with Christ in the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, prayer.
He may caution us against spending as little time as we do in what he continually calls the task at the heart of Christianity: the encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. It is only this encounter, he says again and again, which can lead us to love, for God and one another. Only this encounter which can tear us from a "hedonistic and consumer mentality ... a drift toward superficiality and selfishness."
During his time with us here, in both his person and his words, Pope Benedict XVI will undoubtedly remind us of our "pride" as Catholics. Not a mindless or triumphalistic pride, but a well-grounded delight in our history, our tremendous intellectual resources, and our ability to engage the world.
He will insist that our faith begins with a "yes" to love, to new life, to what he calls in his second encyclical, Spe Salvi ("Saved by Hope") the "true life" for which our whole being yearns. Life without limits, without death. He will also undoubtedly remind us that such a life does not come without suffering, without the daily struggle against sin. That freedom requires conviction, which "does not exist on its own, but must always be gained anew by the community," who lives always in the sure hope of the Lord.
How fortunate we are to have at this precise time in history, a man with Benedict's capacities! We should give thanks to the Holy Spirit for his intellectual brilliance, his facility with the written and spoken word, his personal fervor for the truth of the entire Christian project. We should also give thanks for this realism: Benedict has stated that if he could ask God one question it would be about the weight of evil in a world in which God is nevertheless in charge.
If we choose to engage ourselves with this man, Pope Benedict XVI, his visit to the United States will be an occasion both for renewed celebration of our strengths, and renewed commitment to national reform, for Catholics in the United States.
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