In a homily on April 19, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI noted the St Patrick Cathedral’s beautiful stained-glass windows, which “flood the interior with mystic light”. He reflected that “it is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit”.
The metaphor captured one of his deepest aspirations: to make known the Church’s interior life so that others will see the Church as she truly is. His evocation of outward-looking “dark, heavy, even dreary” windows that “come alive” with light also captures the enduring legacy of the papal visit to the United States in 2008, beginning with the image of the pope himself.
In 2008 it was still fashionable in mainstream and even some Catholic media to brand Pope Benedict as “The Enforcer”. “God’s Rottweiler” was coming, some said, to bark at us. He would surely scold and condemn like the doctrin-aire, out-of-touch professor that he was.
Such caricatures betrayed a total ignorance of the gentleness, humility, and intellectual and spiritual depths of Jos-eph Ratzinger.
In five days that image changed. He gave 16 thoughtful, measured and inspiring talks; he addressed bishops, educators and the United Nations. He met privately with victims of clergy sexual abuse who later spoke of his warmth, sorrow and clear resolve that the Church must make amends. He spoke eloquently to interfaith leaders and ecumenical leaders; at New York’s Park East Synagogue he affectionately embraced its senior rabbi on the eve of Passover.
He knelt in prayer at Ground Zero, imploring God’s mercy on those who had lost their lives in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and those who mourned loved ones. He celebrated packed-out Masses at both Nationals Park in Washington, DC and the venerable Yankees Stadium. Half a million people had requested spots. The New York Times reported that when he entered the city’s “Cathedral of Baseball”, the congregation “roared with all the sustained excitement of spectators at a pennant-clinching game”.
Meanwhile, when President and Mrs Bush led 4,000 guests in singing to him on his 81st birthday, his bashful smile of gratitude made the Rottweiler moniker almost comical. There can be no doubt that after his visit Pope Benedict’s image in the US was changed forever.
He had words of encouragement, too, for American Catholics who had been living for years with the shame and frustration of the clerical-abuse scandals as well as a galloping secularism that had affected both the Church and wider culture. His hopeful and rousing words revealed more “mystic light” hidden behind a gloomy façade.
Pope Benedict exhorted American Catholics to remember the heritage of faith they have received and to strive to be worthy of that inheritance. He urged us to face our challenges “with confidence in Christ’s victory” by “not losing heart in the face of resistance, adversity and scandal” and by “overcoming every separation between faith and life, and countering false gospels of freedom and happiness”.
“Past generations have left you an impressive legacy,” he continued. “In our day too, the Catholic community in this nation has been outstanding in its prophetic witness in the defence of life, in the education of the young, in care for the poor, the sick and the stranger in your midst. On these solid foundations, the future of the Church in America must even now begin to rise!”
He reminded all Americans, not just Catholics, that a truly free society must be a good society. At the White House Pope Benedict observed that the “preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice … It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new.”
“It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good,” he urged. Pope Benedict returned to this message in almost every talk he gave. He reminded us that the necessary (and often forgotten) foundation for the freedoms we cherish is a robust understanding of the good: freedom without truth or morality is not true freedom at all. He reminded Americans that Catholics, indeed all believers, have a vital role to play in the life of the Republic.
What some see as annoying moral restrictions and opaque dogmas – the “heavy” and “dreary” exterior of faith – is the sole foundation for the “mystic light” of real freedom. Untethered freedoms are enticing, but inevitably they become shackles that imprison, never wings that soar.
Americans pride themselves on their freedom, but for those who had ears to hear, the Holy Father’s visit contained a salutary warning: freedom is not licence.
If we forget that, then our freedom becomes an empty husk – a pretence of authentic liberty. We will have forgotten what it means to be American. The papal visit of 2008 was a blessing to the Church in the United States. It left a legacy that is far from spent.
The Revd Dr Carter Griffin is Rector of St John Paul II Seminary in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC
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