I am impressed by Pope Benedict XVI
You who know me know I am not Roman Catholic. I want to begin this article by saying that I have no intentions of offending anyone, but when a non-Catholic comments on the pope, it can be easily construed to be a slam. The truth of the matter is, lately I am professing no affiliation to any organized religion. By doing so I have become more tolerant of different beliefs. My religion is between God, Jesus and myself and if that is not good enough, I guess that is just to bad for me. Enough of me but it gave me a tolerant mind to look at television where I would not have before.
I watched the ceremony at the sight of the World Trade Center in New York City and I was very deeply impressed. Yes, it has been six and a half years since 9-11, but I do not think we appreciate the trauma it caused in New York City and to the friends and family of those whose lives were changed on that day.
Pope Benedict impressed me as a man who truly wants to bring comfort to those who came to him. I got the impression at times he did not understand the short comments made by the faithful; do to the language barrier, who came to be blessed by him. I saw him smile and at times it looked like he was laughing. I feel he is a very tender man, but the most of my impressions were he really cared about his flock in this city and wanted to make his flock know the ceremony at the World Trade Center very important to him. I felt no pretension in this man.
As a boy I grew up in a very heavily Roman Catholic population in the Chicago area. There was a Roman Catholic Church on about every corner it seemed. Many of my friends at the time were of that faith. As a non-Catholic it seemed at times there was a certain friction between the Catholics and the Protestants. This friction really began to ease when John F. Kennedy was elected as president. The days of the Italian only popes held my vision of them was old men, in long robes, stuck in some old, musty, dusty, Vatican only to be seen on a balcony, far above the crowd and illusive to all but the inner circle. John Paul II changed all of that, the end of the centuries long Italian only pope era, seemed to bring a new freshness to the office of pope and the Roman Catholic Church as well. John Paul II became the people’s pope and began to travel, become more accessible and to minister to his people. I really believe that John Paul had a lot to do with the downfall of the Soviet block. Benedict now; in what in reality was a tough act to follow, has in good sense not taken the office of pope back into the seclusion of the Vatican. He has followed the example set by his predecessor and gone into the world, "to preach the gospel." He came to America with a real heart to minister the church, which he bears responsibility, in the spirit of Christ. Pope Benedict XVI brought a teaching example to men and women of any faith, may it be clergyman, pastor, minister, evangelist, missionary, rabbi, priest, or what ever else I am missing. Go to your people and minister to them, don’t wait for them to come to you. The people who gathered in two baseball parks, one in Washington and one in New York, didn’t come to get upbeat by music, they came to have their faith renewed and strengthened by a man who they respected as a man of God, who really cares for them.
When I was a boy, in all honesty the Catholics were a brunt of many jokes, many of them degrading and or dirty. As I said, Pope John Paul II set a new tone for the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict continues in that frame of mind. People want to see a real man of God, they want faith and they want an example of faith. They want somehow to believe in a world of difficulty. Pope Benedict gave them a lot of what they needed.
There is only one thing I can think of more about the man, which I thought the second I heard he took the name Benedict. His given name is Joseph Alois Ratzinger. I wonder how he would have really brought his church into the twenty-first century if he would have taken the name, "Pope Joe?" I hope you will forgive me for this one piece of attempted humor. I know he would, because that is the kind of man I know he is. Frankly, I think he would laugh.
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