The Pope’s Message Of Healing

Yesterday in New York City, Pope Benedict XVI capped off his six-day visit to the United States — his first as leader of the Roman Catholic Church — where he presided over Mass at Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 57,000 people, calling on those in attendance to “unite behind church teachings and resist the challenges of living in a society that increasingly values secularism.”

Before Mass yesterday, the Pope led a morning ceremony at Ground Zero, where he blessed the World Trade Center site, “prayed for peace and met with a group of survivors and families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” “Turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred,” Benedict said, adding, “Grant that those whose lives were spared may live so that lives lost here may not have been lost in vain.” Days earlier in Washington, D.C., Benedict met with a small group of victims of clergy sex abuse — “the first publicly known meeting between a pontiff and victims since the most recent scandal erupted in Boston six years ago.” While the meeting was described as a “moving experience,” one victim who attended was quoted as having told Benedict: “Holy Father, I want you to know you have a cancer in your flock and you need to correct that, and I hope you do. You need to do more.”

‘NOTHING POSITIVE COMES FROM IRAQ’: The pope largely shied away from hot button political issues during his visit, but in a speech to the United Nations last Friday, Benedict seemed to turn his attention to President Bush and his administration’s unilateral and hubristic foreign policy over the last seven years. While Benedict stressed human rights, he also warned against “the unwillingness of many nations to embrace multilateralism at a time when the world’s problems ‘call for interventions in the form of collective action.’” Benedict did not single out the United States specifically, but his remarks had been interpreted as being directed at the Bush administration. Indeed, last year, the pope said, “Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees.” During his visit, Benedict met privately with Bush, only the second pontiff ever to visit the White House, but administration officials tried to downplay their disagreement on the Iraq war. Moreover, Benedict “refused a recent request by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East and Iraq.” Some have suggested that the refusal harks back to a meeting just before the Iraq war commenced in March 2003 in which Rice — then National Security Adviser — told a papal envoy that “the Bush administration was not interested in the views of the late Pope [John Paul II] on the immorality of launching its planned military offensive.” Benedict has also sharply disagreed with Bush on the issue of torture, explaining that it is an “unacceptable” method for extracting information.

FAMILY SEPARATION IS ‘TRULY DANGEROUS’: In addition to addressing the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals, Benedict’s visit touched on immigration. The pope stressed that the issue would be a priority in his discussions with Bush, saying just before he arrived that the United States must do “everything possible to fight…all forms of violence so that immigrants may lead dignified lives” and that the separation of immigrant families “is truly dangerous for the social, moral and human fabric.” Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) criticized the pope’s comments on immigration, saying his “faith-based marketing” may have “less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.” But some in the “Catholic hierarchy said they were shocked that on the same day that Benedict and President Bush affirmed in a joint statement the need for a policy that treats immigrants humanely and protects their families, federal agents were conducting raids at five chicken plants. They arrested more than 300 immigrants accused of being illegal workers.” Undermining Benedict’s edict that separating immigrant families is “dangerous,” the Bush administration has sharply increased deportations. In the last fiscal year ending Sept. 30, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 280,000 people, a 44 percent jump from the previous year.

‘BRIDGES OF FRIENDSHIP’: While in Washington, Benedict addressed 200 leaders of five other faiths — including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Judaism — at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. He noted that “Americans have always valued the ability to worship freely and in accordance with their conscience.” In an effort to encourage interfaith dialogue, he said, “In our attempt to discover points of commonality, perhaps we have shied away from the responsibility to discuss our differences with calmness and clarity. While always uniting our hearts and minds in the call for peace, we must also listen attentively to the voice of truth.” Benedict also visited the the Park East Synagogue in New York City just before the start of the Jewish Sabbath, “the first time a pope had set foot inside a Jewish house of worship in the United States.” There, Benedict “encouraged worshippers to ‘continue building bridges of friendship’ with different ethnic and religious groups in their neighborhoods.” Benedict has previously advocated reaching out to Jewish leaders. “As theological adviser to Pope John Paul II, he is credited with playing a key role in John Paul’s decision to apologize to Jews for the role Catholics played in the Holocaust.”

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster

This material was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Click here to subscribe.

Net News Publisher