Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lone superpower, geopolitics remains the great open question in Benedict's three-year reign. The six-day visit to the United States - which includes a White House visit, an address at the United Nations and a prayer at Ground Zero - may be the best opportunity for the theologian pontiff to define his leadership in international relations. "The Pope per se is simply the custodian of the Catholic tradition," says a senior Vatican official. "He can become a global leader if he manages to embody a battle of ideals that is present in the world...
...Zero. But no matter what political issues or media angles may be buzzing before take-off, the Vatican tends to stress the pastoral aspect of any papal journey. The six-day itinerary is above all stacked with church services, baseball stadium masses and Catholic institutional encounters to allow the pontiff to tend to his flock, and to the priests and bishops who do the ministering when he's back in Rome...
...American visit, however, poses an unprecedented pastoral challenge for the 80-year-old pontiff. Benedict's is the first papal trip to the United States since the priest sex abuse crisis erupted in 2001. It is a controversy that has left much of the American laity bitterly disillusioned with their Church's leadership. For many of the 67 million American Catholics, how the Pope confronts the lingering fallout from the pedophilia scandal may largely determine the success of this visit...
...holding on to the option as a possible surprise stroke of spontaneity where the Holy Father's human contact might help assuage some of the lingering pain. It will be important to follow closely both the words and any potential gestures to see if the reserved pontiff manages to address the suffering of victims, and Catholics in general, with both sincerity and substance...
...return to his private studies in Germany after the conclusion of the papacy of the ailing John Paul II. Of course, fate had other plans, and when Ratzinger became Benedict XVI, Gänswein moved with him across St. Peter's Square to the office next to the new pontiff in the Apostolic Palace...