Religion: John Paul Draws The Line

The morning was balmy, a refreshing California contrast to the withering heat at earlier stops across the Sunbelt. Entering a modern, glass-walled dining hall in the San Fernando Mission complex in north Los Angeles, Pope John Paul II stopped frequently as he worked his way through a gathering of 320 American Roman Catholic bishops. It was an exceptionally cordial encounter, and the Pope lingered an unscheduled 45 minutes to continue the informal exchanges before a closed-door session began. Again, after the meeting, the atmosphere was relaxed and genial at an outdoor buffet lunch at small tables under white umbrellas. But in between, during the three-hour working session -- the central event of the Pope's ten-day U.S. visit -- the unfaltering fraternal harmony could not conceal an extraordinary, sharply drawn divergence.

Never before during his reign has John Paul heard a more candid, widely publicized presentation on church discord from a group of bishops. And never before had U.S. Catholics -- priests and laity alike -- been told so plainly by the Pontiff that they should not consider themselves good Catholics unless they accept all of the church's teachings. "Dissent from church doctrine remains what it is: dissent," he declared. "As such it may not be proposed or received on an equal footing with the church's authentic teaching."

As he left the U.S. last Saturday and flew back to Rome after a one-day visit to northern Canada, the Pope could count both achievements and disappointments. The crowds, as always, had been moved, almost visibly uplifted, by his appearances. Still, the numbers along his motorcade routes were often surprisingly small, thinned perhaps by fears of the crush and heavy security, or the it's-on-TV-anyway mentality; even on his visit to Detroit, only 30,000 turned out in the largely Polish community of Hamtramck. The Pontiff had made special contact for the first time with varied groups of U.S. Catholics -- Hispanics, American Indians, AIDS sufferers -- but his delivery was often wooden (English is not easy for him), and he was best on the few occasions when he could depart from ceremonial mechanics.

"In every city the Pope has hit a home run -- with the bases loaded," beamed Houston's Bishop Joseph Fiorenza. But that seemed a pardonable exaggeration. By no reckoning had John Paul taken America with the same wave of enthusiasm that his 1979 tour generated. Possibly, however, the relative calm of this visit suited John Paul, for nothing he did distracted from the strong message of papal authority he sought to deliver.

There were memorable moments, of course -- usually serious, often sentimental, occasionally silly. One of John Paul's most eloquent sermons was delivered to a glittering gathering of 1,500 executives and entertainers (Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Loretta Young) in Los Angeles, summoning them to lift the moral tone of their media. "Seeking to satisfy the dreams of millions," he cautioned, "you can become lost in a world of fantasy." In downtown Detroit, he challenged an affluent nation: "You may choose to close in on yourselves, to enjoy the fruits of your own form of progress and to try to forget about the rest of the world. Or . . . you may choose to live up to the responsibilities that your own history and accomplishments place on your shoulders."