What Did Pope Benedict Hope to Accomplish?

Almost three decades ago, Pope John Paul II made his first apostolic journey to the United States. Young for a pope--he was only 59--he inspired America's youth in a way that no pope ever had. We still talk of the "John Paul II Generation"--those Catholics who knew no other pope until the death of John Paul and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. They are the first generation to have grown up in a Church marked by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and for many of them, John Paul represented the promise of Vatican II.

The first Polish pope was a tough act to follow, but last week, Pope Benedict XVI proved himself up to the challenge. Does he inspire the same outpouring of emotion as his predecessor did? Perhaps not. While there was no end to the expressions of joy at every stop on his tour, the emotions of the faithful were more subdued--or, perhaps, more mature. Even the stadium Masses, which by their very nature tend to be excessive, were characterized by dignity and solemnity.

That does not mean, however, that the faithful love Pope Benedict less. And, in a way, they may respect him more. While John Paul II wrote numerous encyclicals that will shape the Church for decades to come, most Catholics regard Pope Benedict as a scholar in a way that his predecessor was not. John Paul embraced Vatican II fully, trying to implement the true intentions of the Council fathers faithfully. Benedict had almost three decades more to watch, and think, and evaluate the fruits of the Council. He is no less committed to Vatican II than John Paul was, but he knows that what the Church needs now is continuity and unity, rather than change.

And that was Pope Benedict's message to the Church in America last week. When he repeatedly declared that he hoped that his trip would bring about a renewal in the Church in America, when he told priests and religious assembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral that now is the time for "a new Pentecost for the Church in America," he was calling for change, but a change that will bring American Catholics back in line with the faith of their fathers.

We cannot move forward and evangelize our culture if we cut ourselves off from the truths of our past. Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Our living encounter with the One Who comes in the Name of the Lord lets us see with the eyes of faith the unbroken continuity in the Mystical Body of Christ from the apostles on down to us today.

Pope Benedict did not come here to bask in adulation; he did not come here to influence the outcome of the next election; he did not even come, primarily, to speak truth to power. He came, as he said in spontaneous remarks at the end of his Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, "to be a worthy successor of the great Apostle, who also was a man with faults and sins, but remained in the end the rock for the Church."

Pope Benedict came to America to open our eyes of faith, so that we might view the world with hope, and transform it with love.

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