UNITED STATES
Catholic Herald (UK)
by Stephen White
posted Thursday, 17 Sep 2015
From annulments to pro-life activism the American Church is blazing a trail for the rest of the Catholic world
In a few days Pope Francis will make his first visit to the United States. He will meet President Obama. He will address a joint session of Congress (something no pontiff has ever done). He will give an address to the United Nations in New York. Every word of his, scripted and unscripted, will be parsed for its political significance. Every gesture will be studied, scrutinised and spun. Cranks will complain, pundits will opine. The Holy Father’s visit is being treated with all the hype and gamesmanship of a major political campaign event.
And that, in part, is understandable. This visit – this Pope visiting at this particular time – ought to be big news, and it will necessarily disturb the already turbulent waters of American politics.
Experience suggests that Pope Francis is unlikely to steer completely clear of neuralgic political issues. He doesn’t mind causing a ruckus now and then. But his is an apostolic visit – he comes as an apostle, a messenger, a successor of Peter. He visits as a pastor, first and foremost, and Catholics must not forget this, even if everyone else does.
Francis comes at a critical time for the Church in the United States, and for the 70 million or so Catholics who live in the country. The Church’s future is filled with promise and doubt, hope and confusion, division and resilience. The self-inflicted wounds of the sexual abuse crisis are far from healed, yet the Church here has dealt with the scourge better than almost any institution in the world.
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