The Pope Comes to America

By NANCY GIBBS

Being Pope has its privileges: the first foreign visitor to be greeted on the tarmac by President Bush; 12,000 well wishers on the White House South Lawn, more than for the Queen of England; 21 guns, fife and drums, and a cake for his 81st birthday. The anticipation of Pope Benedict XVI's visit was so great, the response was so warm, it was as though his hosts were trying to raise him up, a Pontiff in many ways still in the shadow of his predecessor, John Paul Superstar. And no one seemed more eager to cast him in the brightest light than his unlikely political partner, George W. Bush.

The President was visibly excited on the ride out to the airport and obviously engaged during the immense welcome ceremony the next day. The contrast between the swaggering born-again Texan and the cerebral Catholic scholar seems stark. Indeed, there is plenty to separate them, particularly their views of the Iraq war. But there is also much to unite them, especially at this moment in both their careers. They share a taste for straight talk and simple truths as weapons against doubt and denial: on stem-cell research, abortion and religious violence, they are brothers in arms. "We need your message to reject the dictatorship of relativism," Bush said in his welcome, "and embrace a culture of justice and truth."

The President, whose pursuit of Catholic and Hispanic voters in his two campaigns once helped reshape his party, could be grateful for his guest's sensitive political instincts. In his greeting, the Pontiff did not mention the war, though he did call for "patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts." The Pope will need to draw on all of that sensitivity. His visit came as many American Catholics remain livid over the church's recent pedophilia scandals. Benedict agreed in remarks to U.S. bishops that the issue had been "sometimes very badly handled"--the first real admission of the church's culpability--but still found enough blame to lay on America's "wider context of sexual mores" as well. The Pope's political reflexes will be tested again and again as he seeks to shepherd a flock that does not always share the certainties of its leaders, sacred and secular alike.