11/12/2007
loriRMFC
Post: 328
Pope to Visit Ground Zero
and Celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium
By Sewell Chan
The New York Times
Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States in April will be his first as pope. (Photo: Alessia Giuliani/AFP/Getty Images)
Updated, 2:12 p.m. | Pope Benedict XVI will make his first visit to the United States as pontiff over six days in April, and he plans to visit ground zero, address the United Nations and celebrate Masses at National Stadium in Washington and St. Patrick's Cathedral and Yankee Stadium in New York, officials at the Vatican and the Archdiocese of New York announced today.
The papal visit will be only the fourth in New York City's history. Pope Paul VI visited in October 1965, during the first-ever papal visit to the United States. Pope John Paul II visited New York in October 1979 and October 1995.
Citing remarks by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Associated Press reported that Pope Benedict will travel to Washington and New York.
The pope will be in Washington from April 15 to 17 and in New York from April 18 to 20. He is to attend a reception at the White House on April 16 and celebrate Mass at the new National Stadium in Washington on April 17. On April 18, he is to address the United Nations and participate in an Ecumenical Service at a New York parish. On April 19, he will celebrate a morning Mass with priests, deacons and members of religious orders at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a visit to Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, where the pope will participate in an event with youth and young people.
On April 20, the final day of his visit, Pope Benedict is to visit Ground Zero and celebrate a Mass in Yankee Stadium. He is scheduled to return to Rome that evening.
Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of New York, said in a statement:
"When our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, told me last July that he would be visiting New York this coming April, I was delighted with the news and shared it with the People of God of the Archdiocese of New York and the entire community of Greater New York. The response of all was both rejoicing and thanksgiving to the Lord for the great grace of the presence of the Successor of Saint Peter in our midst. I have assured the Holy Father of a warm and prayerful welcome. We all look forward to his visit with pleasure and anticipation."
As City Room reported in July, this will Pope Benedict’s first visit to New York since he was elected in 2005, but not his first visit to New York City. In January 1988, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany and the Roman Catholic Church’s top theologian, he attended a theological conference in Manhattan. During that visit, several rabbis refused to attend a meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger because he had maintained that Judaism finds its fulfillment in Christianity. Gay demonstrators, angered by the cleric's contention that homosexuality is a "moral disorder," heckled him.
Many New Yorkers have memories of the papal visits of 1965, 1979 and 1995, which were major events in the life of the city. Readers are invited to share those memories — and their thoughts about Pope Benedict and his coming visit — using the comments box below.
SOURCE: cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/pope-to-visit-ground-zero-and-celebrate-mass-at-yankee-stadium/index...
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From the Washington Post:
Pope Set to Visit
Washington and New York in April
By Jacqueline L. Salmon and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 12, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI will visit Washington and New York in April, the first papal visit to the United States since 1999 and the current pope's eighth foreign journey since becoming head of the Catholic Church in April 2005.
The six-day trip was announced this morning at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops annual meeting, held this year in Baltimore.
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio, said he hopes the visit will bring "a new usefulness, a new spring, a new Pentecost, in the church of America."
The pope will arrive April 15 and visit the White House the next day, according to the schedule released by the Vatican. On April 17, he will celebrate Mass at the new Nationals baseball stadium and meet at Catholic University with leaders of Catholic colleges and universities from throughout the country.
On the 18th, he will address the United Nations in New York, with a Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral following the next day. On his last day in the United States, he will visit the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and celebrate Mass that afternoon at Yankee Stadium before returning to Rome.
Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said he was thrilled that the nation's capital will be "the point of entry" for Benedict's first trip to the United States.
The Mass at the new stadium "means we will be able to have tens of thousands of the faithful be with him, and that will multiply the blessings," Wuerl said.
Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, made foreign travel a centerpiece of his papacy, and he was the first pope to visit Washington. His Mass on the Mall in 1979 was a historic moment, though attendance fell far below expectations. He visited the United States seven times, with his final trip a 1999 stop in St. Louis. Two of those trips were limited to stopovers in Alaska.
Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, already has met President Bush, who stopped at the Vatican in June while in Europe for meetings of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
The pope, following up on Vatican opposition to the war in Iraq, raised concerns during that meeting about the treatment of Iraqi Christians given the climate of sectarian violence that erupted in the wake of the U.S. invasion.
His other foreign trips have included a politically sensitive visit to Turkey in late 2006 meant to improve relations between Christians and Muslims - an effort complicated by remarks he had made earlier regarding violence and Islam, and cautioning against Turkey's admission to the European Union.
The reaction among U.S. Catholics will be closely watched. As head of doctrine under Pope John Paul II, Ratzinger was a polarizing figure in many U.S. parishes because of his statements about abortion and other social issues. He delivered what was seen as a rebuke to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 presidential campaign when he wrote that communion should be withheld from politicians who are "consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws."
The Post had a longer story the following day. Note the evident bias worked into this story by the very choice of the people asked to comment and what they said:
Pope Will Visit D.C. In April -
Benedict XVI To Celebrate Mass At New Ballpark
By Michelle Boorstein and Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page A01
Pope Benedict XVI will visit Washington for three days in April, a Vatican spokesman announced yesterday, the first time a pope will be in the capital since 1979. Tens of thousands are expected to celebrate Mass with him in the new Nationals baseball stadium.
Benedict, who will turn 81 while visiting, had planned to speak before the United Nations in New York and then added the three-day stop in Washington, during which he will also go to the White House and meet with Catholic educators.
Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl beamed yesterday during a meeting in Baltimore of American Catholic bishops as he talked about the pope's visit, saying he invited Benedict to Washington "and then we did pray. We prayed very hard."
It will be Benedict's first visit to the United States as pope and the first papal visit to the United States since the Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal exploded in Boston in 2002. Vatican officials expressed hope that the visit might encourage a rejuvenation of the church in the wake of the controversy.
"We should issue an invitation to return for those who have left the church. The church is still the church of Jesus Christ, of the Gospel, and of the mission entrusted by Jesus Christ to his apostles," Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the pope's representative in the United States, said at a news conference in Baltimore.
Benedict's decision not to visit Boston was the subject of debate among Vatican-watchers and bloggers yesterday. But William S. Skylstad, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the decision to skip Boston was due to the pope's age and limited energy.
Although Benedict is considered shyer and less of a celebrity than his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, since becoming pope in 2005 he has made several controversial comments about Islam, the primacy of the Catholic Church and pro-choice Catholic politicians. His visit will be of high interest, analysts said yesterday.
"This is America. People will be asking questions about why he didn't go to Boston, looking for him to say something about the sex-abuse scandal, something that relates to them pastorally, [like] why don't they have enough priests? Why can't laypeople do more?" said David Gibson, a longtime religion reporter and author of "The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle With the Modern World."
"He isn't going to address that agenda. He'll just say: 'Pray harder.' "
Benedict will visit Catholic University and speak about Catholic education. The Very Rev. David M. O'Connell, university president, said the school looks forward to the visit "with tremendous anticipation and enthusiasm."
In the eyes of the Vatican, American Catholics are a complex community, with a quarter of the country's people describing themselves as Catholic but a small minority of that group saying they view church leaders as the proper source of moral authority, primarily when it comes to issues of sexuality. Some analysts said yesterday that the Vatican is concerned that Catholic colleges and universities are teaching the faith in a relative way.
"All of my colleagues who teach at Catholic colleges and universities will be listening carefully to see if he talks about orthodoxy among those who teach theology," said Paul Lakeland, chair of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University.
Benedict will arrive in Washington on April 15. The next day, his birthday, he will be officially welcomed at the White House, and that afternoon he will address a special meeting of the bishops' conference. On April 17, he will celebrate Mass at the new Washington Nationals stadium. Wuerl said he expects that all 41,000 seats will be filled but said he did not yet know how admission will be handled.
The pope also will meet with educators at Catholic University that day before leaving for New York City. There, he will address the United Nations, hold an ecumenical meeting and visit Ground Zero before returning to Rome on April 20.
There are about 1 million Catholics in the area of the Washington and Arlington archdioceses. The Washington Archdiocese includes the District and suburban Maryland counties; the Arlington Archdiocese stretches to Shenandoah County, Va., to the west and the Northern Neck to the south.
William D'Antonio, a sociologist at the Life Cycle Institute at Catholic University, said surveys of U.S. Catholics since 1987 show they are increasingly distancing themselves from Vatican teachings, but he did not see that as a plain rejection of the pope.
"I think they are looking to their consciences versus obedience to authority," he said yesterday. They will probably want to see and hear Benedict when he visits because "they look to his personal holiness" and his teachings on social justice. "To the degree which he'll speak about poverty, conflict and war, he'll receive a very positive reception."
Benedict has provoked great debate in the past year, including this spring, when he said during a news conference in Brazil that he agreed with the excommunication of Mexican lawmakers who legalized abortion. During the U.S. presidential campaign in 2004, U.S. bishops debated how to characterize pro-choice candidates, and this week in Baltimore they will again debate it - this time in public - as they vote on a document meant to give American Catholics voting guidance.
The bishops and Benedict are very cautious about this subject, Gibson said, so they don't tie one another's hands. Wuerl, in particular, is in a complex spot, Gibson said, because he is in effect the bishop or all Catholic politicians on Capitol Hill - both supporters and opponents of abortion rights.
Last fall, Benedict suggested that Islam was prone to violence, igniting furor in the Muslim world. He said later that his comments were misunderstood and has worked toward dialogue with Muslims. This summer, he repeated his belief that Catholicism is the only true church, a statement some worry will hurt relations with other denominations.
Staff writer Howard Schneider contributed to this report.