Pope Benedict XVI, who has praised the United States for its religious freedom but rued its increasing secularization, arrives this week for a six-day, two-city visit in which he will introduce himself to a nation enamoured of his predecessor but largely unsure what to make of the new pontiff.He will discuss public policy at the White House and the United Nations, will preach the Gospel at Yankee Stadium and Nationals Park, will roll through the streets of Washington and New York in his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz popemobile, and will kneel in silent prayer at ground zero.
But mostly, he will offer Americans and, in particular, American Catholics, a chance to take the measure of this spiritual leader, who despite three years in office remains a relative unknown.
Those who follow him closely, eager to find quirks of humanity in this stern-seeming man, have fixed on a handful of colourful details - his fondness for cats, his skill at the piano, the fluffy fur-trimmed hat, and the striking red loafers that may or may not have been styled by Prada.
He is dogged by his reputation as a doctrinaire hatchet man for John Paul II, but most often described by those closest to him as a brilliant and prolific theologian seeking to inspire, not chastise, his large but troubled flock.
"The pope is coming to the church in the US at a time when American Catholicism is in a very serious crisis," said Russell Shaw, an author and commentator who is the former communications director for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"Some people would say it's too late, that the church is in an irreversible downward spiral in the United States. I think it can be turned around, but we've suffered enormous losses in numbers and commitment over the last 40 years. The pope is not going to turn it around by magic, but I hope what he will do is begin to address these problems seriously."
The Catholic Church, with 67 million adherents in the United States, is the nation's largest religious denomination. But it is haemorrhaging members - 10 percent of the American adult population is made up of former Catholics - and its overall population level is stable only because of immigration, according to a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey released in February.
The church is also reeling from the effects of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which has harmed Mass attendance, financial contributions, and seminary enrollments in Boston and beyond.
Benedict anticipated the demographic quandary in 2004, writing in a book, "One cannot hide the fact that in the United States, also, the Christian heritage is falling apart at an incessant pace, while at the same time the rapid increase in the Hispanic population and the presence of religious traditions from all over the world have altered the picture."
Benedict has made several gestures in the direction of the growing Hispanic population, which now makes up about one-third of the nation's Catholics; he appointed the first cardinal in Texas, an area of considerable Hispanic growth, and his video greeting to the United States, released last week, included a section in Spanish.
"He thinks more highly of America than we might have thought," said Chester L. Gillis, a professor of theology at Georgetown University. "As much as, in the past, popes may have wanted to excoriate Americans for creating a culture of death, or hedonism, or consumerism, Benedict is dealing with Europe, in his own backyard, where it's a pretty sad situation for Christianity. So he comes here, and he's looking at a Christianity that's pretty robust. We have a culture in which religion is important."
Benedict's papacy has had several important moments. He has traveled to his native Germany, as well as Poland, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, and Austria, has authored encyclicals about love and hope and a book about Jesus. He has championed peace, speaking out on Iraq, the Middle East, and Tibet, as well as the environment, declaring the Vatican the world's first carbon-neutral state. And he has engendered a few controversies, most notably when he offended Muslims with a 14th-century anecdote he cited in a speech that referred to elements of the early history of Islam as "evil and inhuman."
But his trip to the United States, with its ravenous media and affluent and sizable Catholic population, promises to be one of the first defining moments of his papacy.
The trip was triggered by Benedict's agreement to speak to the UN, but it is the other events, such as when he addresses American Catholics, that will help shape his public image going forward.
"This is an opportunity for him to present himself to the American people, who don't really know him, and to give them the opportunity to take the cut of his jib," said R. James Nicholson, who got to know the future pope as US ambassador to the Vatican from 2001 to 2005. "I think they will be surprised."
Benedict has had a complicated relationship with the United States. Like John Paul II, he opposed the Iraq war and has expressed concerns about abortion, divorce, birth control, capital punishment, and the increasing tolerance of same-sex relationships in the United States.
A highly regarded German theologian, Benedict, then known by his birth name, Joseph Ratzinger, visited the United States multiple times prior to his papacy, and he speaks fluent, although heavily accented, English.
During his lengthy tenure as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, he met most American bishops, who would visit him on their period visits to church headquarters.
He has described his views toward the United States in writing and in conversations, in which he has reflected on the relationship between the freedom of religion here and the relatively high degree of religiosity. He has praised the United States for its "sense of a special religious mission toward the rest of the world."
"He really appreciates a lot of things about America - he is very fond of our openness, and he spoke with me about the First Amendment and how the separation of church and state has functioned to create a pluralist environment in which higher church attendance takes place," said L. Francis Rooney III, who was US ambassador to the Vatican from 2005 until earlier this year.
Rooney, like others interviewed who know Benedict personally, say the image of him as a severe enforcer of orthodox doctrine is a caricature that does not acknowledge the pope's humility, his humanity, or even his smile.
"He's been very misinterpreted in the United States so far, and I hope this visit gives him a way to shine publicly the way I've seen him privately - warm, almost meek, thoughtful and gentle, and so profound that you've got to focus on every word," Rooney said.
The United States is home to just 6 percent of the world's Catholic population, but retains an outsized influence within the church because of the amount of money contributed by the nation's Catholics and because the US Catholic population, despite enormous problems, continues to attend church in much higher numbers than in most other Western nations. Here, roughly 40 percent say they have attended church or synagogue in any given week; in western Germany, where Benedict is from, just 14 percent attend worship weekly, and in much of northern Europe the numbers are even lower.
"Europe, unlike America, is on a collision course with its own history," Benedict wrote in a 2004 book, "Without Roots."
"In the United States, there is still a civil Christian religion, although it is besieged and its contents have become uncertain."
Benedict has also spoken positively about America as a model for tolerance and dialogue. In February, in a welcoming address for the new US ambassador to the Vatican, longtime Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, Benedict said: "Your nation's example of uniting people of good will, regardless of race, nationality, or creed, in a shared vision and a disciplined pursuit of the common good, has encouraged many younger nations in their efforts to create a harmonious, free and just social order." And, he added, "I cannot fail to note with gratitude the importance which the United States has attributed to inter religious and intercultural dialogue as a positive force for peacemaking."
Benedict has a mixed record with such dialogues. He has been an outspoken critic of relativism - the notion that there are no absolute truths - and has been leery of interfaith dialogues that might appear to suggest that any set of beliefs is fine. He has alienated not only Muslims, with his speech in Germany and his recent Easter baptism of a Muslim author, but also Jews, with the increased use of a Latin Mass that includes a Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews. In the past he has also raised doubts among some Protestants, by writing that their churches "suffer from defects."
But scholars say Benedict has simply been more determined that interfaith dialogues be substantive, not merely symbolic; his comments about Islam, for example, have led to a serious exchange with Muslim scholars and now he plans to meet with them in Rome. On this week's trip, he plans to greet Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu leaders in Washington, and in New York, he plans to visit a synagogue and lead an ecumenical prayer service with Protestant and Orthodox Christians.
"Benedict pleads that reason must be the basis for any kind of dialogue between religions, whereas John Paul's was more spiritual, and you might even say, more emotional outreach," said Greg Tobin, a Seton Hall University administrator who authored a book about Benedict. "Benedict is very clear in his perspective that the Catholic Church is the true means to salvation, and he's clear about wanting to have good relations with other religious groups. To him they're not mutually exclusive."
Benedict's schedule, which includes stops only in Washington and New York, is as striking for what it avoids as what it includes.
While John Paul II frequently said Mass for crowds of hundreds of thousands, or even, on occasion, millions, Benedict's largest venue will be Yankee Stadium, where he will preside over a Mass for 57,000, including 3,000 Bostonians. The absence of larger-scale events reflects, in part, security concerns, and, in part, Benedict's personality.
Whereas John Paul II was a charismatic and theatrical leader, Benedict is a more reticent figure. John Paul II was also 59 years old when he first came to the United States; Benedict will turn 81 on Wednesday, while in Washington. In a letter to Boston Catholics last week, Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley alluded to this distinction, saying, "The Holy Father is not a celebrity or a rock star. He is a shepherd and represents Christ."
Benedict also conspicuously decided not to visit Boston, the epicenter of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, despite repeated invitations from O'Malley. The pope apparently did not want the abuse issue to overshadow his trip, but he is expected to mention the issue, and possibly to meet with victims, during his time in the United States. He also plans to acknowledge the bicentennial of the Boston Archdiocese, as well as several other dioceses, during the Yankee Stadium Mass.
Benedict will also try to avoid getting involved in American politics. Popes have in the past avoided even visiting during election years; Benedict is coming now because he wanted to speak at the UN, but the timing adds a complication, and is likely to mean his remarks are even more theological and less oriented toward policy concerns than they otherwise might have been.
"Pope Benedict is going to emphasize the interior and spiritual and not the exterior and political," said the Rev. Joseph D. Fessio, who was a doctoral student of Benedict in Germany and who is now the editor in chief of Ignatius Press, the primary English-language publisher of Benedict's works.
The trip is expected to draw massive media attention, and Benedict's every event and utterance will be analyzed as Americans try to figure out what to make of him.
"This trip establishes Benedict as the pope in the minds of many Americans, who still have a very strong memory of John Paul II," said Mathew N. Schmalz, an associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross. "If anyone has seen a pope in person, it's a significant moment. People remember that."
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