The Pope In America: Offering an American Perspective

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Peter Steinfels, executive editor of Commonweal and author of The Neo-Conservatives: Perhaps the Pope's visit will finally convince the media that religion is a serious reality, not only in backward places like Mexico and Iran but also in the U.S. Polls show that 90% of Americans believe in God and pray often, but most of the serious observations about this country are made by the other 10%. Nothing has changed since H.L. Mencken in the way that public commentators look at the reality of religious life.

Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, director of inter-religious affairs, American Jewish Committee: We in the Jewish community are deeply impressed with the Pope's charismatic power, intellectual sharpness and moral persuasiveness. His words at Battery Park were an embrace of love and respect from an international superstar ... There was a positive response to his making the tragedy of Auschwitz his point of departure at the United Nations. Among Protestant and Jewish representatives, I sense a feeling that inadequate respect has been paid to America's pluralistic reality. His itinerary basically ignored the 150 million non-Catholic Americans. America could have been his first papal experience in pluralism.

The Rev. David Tracy, theologian, University of Chicago: American Catholicism, like American society in general, is pluralistic. This means there's conflict, a sort of family quarrel going on. What you see in the crowds that greet the Pope is a kind of affirmation of this pluralism and of a current resurgence of pride in Catholic identity. I am in very great admiration of this Pope. He's a believable person, a good priest, a good Pope. At the same time I am troubled by stands he seems to take. I am also troubled by the Vatican document this year that stated that orthodoxy would be a question in granting tenure to theology professors at certain Catholic universities. It may be a very good thing in Poland, but it doesn't make sense for us.

Garry Wills, columnist and author of Inventing America: John Paul has attracted a large crowd. He doesn't want to lose it, so there will undoubtedly be some pressure on him toward liberalization. On the other hand, the same pressures were there for Pius IX, Pius XII and Paul VI. The history of the recent papacy is not very promising. Almost all Popes come in as reformers, and all of them get more rigid and not more loose as they stay in office. What signals he has given show that he is quite reactionary, surely as reactionary as Paul VI. The recent papacy has taken very progressive stands on nuclear disarmament and redistribution of wealth, but it hasn't had much impact because the Pope is shooting down his own troops when he drives out priests and nuns and makes it so difficult for people who ought to be ministers, like women. His theological conservatism undercuts his political liberalism.