By John Norton

Assignment: Read the pope's 11 American speeches

Those of us who were privileged to cover up close Pope Benedict XVI's April 15-20 visit to the United States (the onsite OSV team included Publisher Greg Erlandson, Contributing Editors Russell Shaw and Mary DeTurris Poust, and Correspondent Kimberley Heatherington, along with others) cannot stop talking about it. Or thinking about it.

I've covered more than a dozen papal trips, including two by traveling on the papal plane. I know the drill pretty well, and I've spent a lot of time reading Pope Benedict lately, so I figured I had a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Not so, I found to my delight.

Pope Benedict had lots of surprises in store for us, which we explore in this special analysis issue. Greg Erlandson has a thematic analysis on Page 3, and Russell Shaw has a more events-based analysis in our In Focus section starting on Page 11.

I've read probably hundreds of papal speeches in my life, but I never remember a group of talks like this with so much content, and so accessibly expressed, paragraph after paragraph.

I'm inspired, recharged, awestruck and eager to implement a whole host of ideas -- personal and professional -- generated by the pope's presence and words.

It's still a bit of a mystery to me exactly why I had the reaction I did, and why never before.

I spent nearly eight years as a Vatican-accredited journalist in Rome, met Pope John Paul II a dozen times and saw him up close scores of times.

I also interviewed once, and met on multiple occasions, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. He blessed my oldest child (who is now 9) in the womb: My wife, then eight months' pregnant, ran into him near St. Peter's Square one morning as he was walking alone to work, and asked him to bless our baby in utero. As if he was any other priest, he did so quietly and naturally, and with his now familiar smile wished her all the best with her new motherhood.

So for me, the excitement of seeing him does not come from the sense of a "once in a lifetime" encounter. Nor is it from close contact with some famous person surrounded by a muscular security retinue. What struck me was what he said, how he said it, his unmistakable sincerity and his unmistakable prayerful integrity.

I'm already looking forward to going back and rereading everything that Pope Benedict said during his visit.

If you've only followed his visit through news coverage, I urge you to set aside a little time to read his texts (which are all available at our website osv.com/papalvisit; then follow the link on the left to "papal texts"). And when you're done, let me know what struck you by writing, emailing feedback@osv.com or visiting our blog on the papal visit page.