Why This Pope Doesn’t Connect

John Paul believed in the same truth, of course. His genius lay in his ability to inspire and lead a billion Catholics—in all their various and contradictory permutations—with his own humanity. He hiked, he skied, he grew infirm and then more infirm before our eyes. "When he prayed it was physical," a Dominican priest in Poland told NEWSWEEK after John Paul died. "He sighed deeply and made grunting sounds like a lion." No matter what Benedict's defenders say about his sense of humor or his love for Mozart, no matter how they explain away his impolitic comments at Regensburg, they cannot convince the American church that he, in any but the most abstract way, resembles the people he was chosen to serve.

The majority of American Catholics are not naive. They don't actually believe that Benedict will overhaul church teachings on birth control, on the ordination of women or the celibate clergy—many of them don't want him to. What they want, at the communion rail and in the person of their Holy Father, is the unity their church promises them, a sense of connectedness through God with all the other Catholics—indeed, all other people—in the world and in heaven. This is not a shallow or frivolous desire but an urgent one, and when it comes to Benedict, so far these Americans aren't feeling it.

Read a different view on the pope's visit from George Weigel.

With Matthew Philips, Daniel Stone and Eve Conant

© 2008