On visit, pope to find American church in flux

The pope’s visit represents the importance of the American church to the Vatican.

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — To Pope Benedict, experts say, the U.S. Catholic Church is a bit like an adolescent: young and unpredictable.

There are bankrupt dioceses and empty seminaries — yet tens of thousands of laypeople are stepping into the chasm to lead their churches.

One of every 10 American Catholics has left the faith — yet close to half of U.S. Catholics attend Mass at least monthly.

Tens of thousands of traditional Catholics have clamored for tickets to the pope’s Thursday Mass at Nationals Park, yet many more think he’s too rigid — or irrelevant.

But how does Benedict understand this picture?

“At the Vatican, there is an admiration for American religiosity,” said Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, a theologian. “But there is a question whether American religiosity is strong enough. It appears to be, from the Vatican point of view, content-free, more spiritual high and emotion than a serious question as to what is true and what is not.”

American Catholics can’t agree whether they’re in crisis or renewal. All sides describe a community in dramatic demographic flux. Further, it is divided in key ways, including the importance of male clergy, immigration and the authority of not only Catholicism but also Christianity.

Yet to Benedict, a German scholar, America looks religiously vibrant compared with secular Europe, with U.S. politicians touting their religiosity and U.S. courts reaffirming faith’s role in public life.

The fact of his visit shows the importance of the American church to the Vatican. At 80, Benedict travels infrequently; this is only his eighth foreign trip in three years as pope. And American Catholics make up just 6 percent of the world church, a percentage that’s shrinking as the number of Catholics in Africa and Asia boom.

But culturally and financially, Americans loom super-sized. For those reasons and others, Benedict experts say he views the United States as an essential battleground in what he considers the war of today’s era: proving that modernity doesn’t have to stamp out religious faith.

It’s well-known that U.S. Catholics disagree with the Vatican on issues of sexuality, including abortion and same-sex marriage. According to recent Washington Post-ABC News surveys, 63 percent of Catholics, compared with 55 percent of all adults, believe gay couples should have access to the same legal protections as heterosexual couples. And 62 percent of Catholics, compared with 57 percent of all adults, say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Large swaths of Catholics also part ways with Benedict’s teachings on immigration, the Iraq war and capital punishment.

Jose Casanova, a Georgetown University professor who specializes in religion and globalization, says there is a growing segment of American Catholics who are essentially developing their own, individualized religion.

In a recent interview, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, was asked about American values. Young people around the world sing, dance, eat and cultivate American-ness, Sambi told the National Catholic Reporter. But, he said, “If you look carefully at all this, you see that what America is exporting throughout the world, especially to the youth of this world, is not always the most noble and constructive qualities America has to offer.”

American Catholicism is being quickly Hispanicized, which is most obviously reflected in more charismatic worship in the pews and more interest in immigration and social welfare at the polls. More than a third of American Catholic adults, and half of Catholics under 40, are Latino. The infusion of Latino Catholicism is generally seen as a huge shot in the arm to the U.S. church.

At Nationals Park, Benedict will see Catholics representing growing immigrant populations of Salvadorans, Africans and Vietnamese. He’ll hear four choirs sing Gregorian chants, gospel and jazz in 10 languages.

He’ll be applauded by people such as Ray Flynn, former Boston mayor and ambassador to the Vatican, who loves the idea of papal hierarchy because it means “people aren’t out there freelancing, talking about their opinion of what the faith teaches. It makes us more unified.”