If he had a few minutes with Pope Benedict XVI (pictured here, arriving in the U.S.), the Rev. Gerard Finucane would urge the pontiff to mandate an hour of contemplation each day for every believer.
“If it’s five minutes or an hour – so be it,” said the pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Johnson City. “We’re bombarded by so many voices, it’s hard to hear what the spirit of God is saying to each of us. We need some isolation, to get away from cell phones and TVs and clear out the clutter. It’s something our age needs.”
Unfortunately, Finucane didn’t have a chance for that conversation this week, when Benedict visited Washington, D.C., and New York City. It was the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s first visit to the United States since he was chosen to lead the Roman Catholic Church in 2005.
Besides, the pontiff, who turned 81 on Wednesday, needed to discuss other issues.
On Thursday, the first full day of a five-day visit, Benedict led mass for 45,000 people gathered in Washington’s new baseball stadium. After that event, it was striking how many people who attended described the “warmth” and enthusiasm they felt, sometimes in surprise since as cardinal he was known as “God’s bulldog” for his doctrinal rigidity. Many talked about their renewed sense of “hope.”
Hope is an important word. It’s no accident that for his visit Benedict selected a simple theme: “Christ our hope.” That was also the subject of an encyclical, a major letter to the church, which he issued last fall.
But now he was coming into a situation that could be read as hopeless or at least discouraged. The Catholic Church in the U.S. has been losing members and facing financial crisis. St. Mary’s, which has doubled in membership in the past decade, is an exception. Catholic colleges and universities struggle with tensions between accepted doctrine and academic freedom.
Most troubling of all, the American church is still reeling from a decade-long scandal of priests who sexually abused children, sometimes over the course of years and sometimes as their American leaders turned a blind eye. More than 5,000 U.S. priests have been accused of abusing about 12,000 children since 1950, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The church has spent about $2 billion on legal claims.
Despite efforts to hold clergy accountable, thousands of members felt betrayed and vulnerable in their own churches. Grassroots groups that offer support for victims also call for a housecleaning in the church. Some brush off any suggestion that substantial changes have occurred.
So it was significant that as Pope Benedict began a major trip with hope as its theme, he addressed the sexual abuse scandal first and in direct terms. He talked about the “shame” he felt and promised that priests who committed pedophilia would be removed. He publicly spoke about the scandal three times in the next day. (The sex-abuse troubles briefly brushed the Diocese of Knoxville, of which St. Mary’s parish is part, with an accusation made years ago against the founding bishop. No problems have ever been reported from St. Mary’s.)
After Thursday’s mass, the pope unexpectedly met and prayed in private with a small group of victims. He had requested the meeting, and it was the first time the pope had met face to face with victims. They came away with both wait-and-see skepticism and – that word again – hope.
Benedict addressed other topics this week – immigration, war, the dangers of relativism, relationships between people of different faiths. For each one, it’s worth noting that Benedict tried to communicate hope by addressing difficult issues, often in blunt terms.
“The thing is that healing takes time,” Finucane observed. “We want to reach out and offer the care and healing we can. But obviously trust has been broken, so when the church reaches out, there’s some doubt about sincerity. We need time to rebuild the trust.”
But Finucane is, of course, hopeful.
“As the shepherd of this flock, (the pope) has the responsibility to speak out forcefully and to give direction,” Finucane said. “But the fact that he chose as his theme ‘Christ our hope’ tells me he chose not to adopt a negative tone, especially in the Easter season. If we follow Christ as the good shepherd, we have that hope to make changes in our lives and move forward.”
First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 19 April 2008.
