Here is the third and last reprise of my coverage of Benedict XVI's US visit in 2008:
In one fell swoop, Benedict XVI has gone from bad press to terrific PR. As the Associated Press reported, “Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. visit left behind the impression of a compassionate and candid leader who has made a successful transition from professor to pope.”
After three years of mainly negative reports (CrossCurrents readers will note I’ve argued such reports were mostly undeserved), the Pope used massive media coverage to great advantage.
"Basically, he seems like a nice guy," National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen said, "which already is an advance over what some of his publicity was three years ago when he was elected."
The element of surprise served Benedict's extremely well during his US visit.
Catholics who doubted the Vatican would ever appreciate how grievously wounded the sex abuse scandal had left American Catholicism were stunned but also pleased to learn of the Pope's unprecedented face-to-face meeting with five victims from the Archdiocese of Boston.
No one had predicted the scandal would occupy pride of place in so many of the Pope’s messages, yet by the time he’d mentioned it to bishops, worshippers at Nationals Stadium, and those gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Yankee Stadium, millions of Catholics began to feel that maybe, just maybe, the Pope really did “get it”—even if there was no mention of action to hold bishops accountable for what he called “badly handled” abuses cases.
Those expecting a stern task-master found instead a quiet, gentle, even elegant figure with a ready smile and sparkling eyes. Most observers were unexpectedly struck by the Pope's evident pleasure to be visiting the one country where religious vitality and modernity cohabit in relative peace—what George Weigel has called the "Un-Europe."
Indeed, Benedict XVI viewed “up close and personal” appears every bit the shy, retiring professor who, after loyally serving John-Paul II for 22 years by playing the role of the Vatican's watchdog, has been liberated by his new office to simply be himself.
So we watch a brilliant scholar and congenial pastor performing his priestly and professorial duties for the people he personifies. No longer the “Vatican Rottweiler,” Benedict had suddenly become our “German Shepherd”!
Even so, American Catholics should not have been surprised by the contrast confronting them when Benedict addressed the United Nations.
As citizens, we've long witnessed the rollercoaster of US-UN relations, capped since 2000 by the Bush administration's open hostility, including the appointment of a virtual anti-ambassador to the UN. As believers, however, we've seen the Church's rock-solid support of the U.N. extend over more than 40 years.
Paul VI, the pilgrim Pope, first addressed the UN in October 1965. His address—justly famous for his call for nuclear disarmament and the dramatic plea "Jamais plus de guerre! War never again!"—also included extravagant praise for the then-young United Nations:
You are a bridge between peoples. You are a network of relation between states. We would almost say that your chief characteristic is a reflection, as it were, in the temporal field, of what our Catholic Church aspires to be in the spiritual field: unique and universal. Your vocations is to make brothers not only of some, but of all people…The edifice which you have constructed must never fail; it must be perfected and made equal to the needs which world history will present.
That history brought John-Paul II’s charismatic presence to the General Assembly's podium twice. In 1979 he called for a world beyond Cold War, one that balanced the equitable distribution of material goods (touted by communist regimes) with the free and open sharing of spiritual values (espoused by capitalist societies). In 1995 he argued that while everyone can embrace basic human rights based on human reason, they can be guaranteed only by reference to transcendent faith-values
Through all these visits, the unmistakable common thread has been the Church's commitment to the UN’s importance and mission. This Papal willingness to side with the UN reflects the central theme of Vatican II: bringing the Church more directly into public life—bringing Wisdom to Power.
Benedict followed suit in style. At Yankee Stadium, Benedict made this point explicitly, saying that building the Kingdom of God “means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, ‘there is no human activity - even in secular affairs - which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion.’ ”
At the United Nations, he devoted his entire address to honoring the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's founding document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Praising the UN as a "moral center” for promoting a “family of nations," the Pope observed that the UN's founding principles "constitute the ideals which should underpin international relations."
He immediately targeted the US invasion of Iraq (but without naming names) by proclaiming that such ideals are:
All the more necessary at a time when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community.
Beyond this call for international coordination, he appealed for a solidarity wherein strong nations would act to support weak nations. The unity of the human family, he insisted, requires that rights be balanced by responsibilities—and especially the “responsibility to protect.” If a nation fails to protect its own people, he said, the international community should intervene with legal and diplomatic instruments capable of "pre-empting and managing conflicts.”
The Pope then launched into a brief argument for the "universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights."
Clearly Benedict sees such human rights as the key to peace:
The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security. Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace.
But he also believes human rights will never be secure if they are regarded as merely legal provisions, rather than natural endowments. Like John-Paul II, he argued that such rights are "based on the natural law inscribed in human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations.”
Here the Pope echoed Thomas Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence, where rights are proclaimed to be "inalienable" since they are things with which humans are "endowed by their creator."
Of course, Jefferson famously named only three main rights, while the Catholic Church proclaims several more, including some (like healthcare) not recognized in the US.
In any case, Benedict’s appearance (which was the formal impetus for his US visit) reminds us that, despite our national ambivalence about the UN and the internationalism it represents, certain things should be clear to American Catholics.
First, the UN can count on the Roman Catholic Church more than on the US for solid consistent support.
Second, the UN benefits from the global prestige of the Papacy.
Third, the Church benefits from papal UN addresses, which provide the most public stage possible for its social teachings to be heard.
Fourth, the world benefits from the partnership between Church and UN.
Indeed, if peace ever comes, it may well be midwifed by these two international institutions working hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008
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