My goodness - what a reception the pope had here at the Shrine. The crowds started assembling hours earlier at Catholic University; sitting in gorgeous sunshine, banners ablaze. And then - and then - there he was, surrounded by zillions of limos and security types, coming up 4th Avenue, crossing Michigan, coming around the grand circle in front of the Shrine and then pulling up in his pope mobile to the south side while the bells rang. He just about hopped out and gave that warm double-arm wave that is so welcoming. Everyone roared. Then he walked up the stairs on that fantastic red carpet. Some of us had walked on it a few hours before and it was plush.
We had been inside the huge church for hours, us media, sitting on the cold marble floors and clustered next to the only two electrical outlets in the place. "You all were supposed to have computers with long-lived batteries," the Shrine press person scolded us. Well, we do - but few computers have much battery life after 3 or so hours of being on and off the press bus, then waiting for 5 hours at the Shrine. Fortunately, embargoed copies of his speech had been floating about since noon so we were all digesting it.
Do try to get a read on it here. It is so multi-faceted, a different theme comes up each time you scan it. He stuck to the general text of the first part of the speech but the question portion deviated a bit from the text as he threw in some extra words and phrases. But nothing startlingly different.
I would have liked him to have been more specific on the sex abuse angle in that if bishops had been doing a decent job at reaching out to victims, why six dioceses now in bankruptcy? I also don't think the problem of priestly sexual abuse lies in the sexual mores of the larger American society. Methinks the problem lies in a specific kind of priestly abuser, 81 percent of whom went after boys or young men. That says something about homosexuality in the priesthood, which the pope was not about to mention in his talk.
The point is he brought it up and stayed on topic for several paragraphs, which is more than most of his bishops do.
He also had a dig at pro-choice Catholics in one of the answers in the Q&A portion of his talk. Now that was really the most interesting part. Questioners were either the most recently consecrated bishop or the oldest serving one or one from an Eastern rite diocese; men who were a bit different. With Benedict sitting there in his white mozzetta (shoulder cape) trimmed with ermine fur and wire-rimmed glasses, he looked all the part of the kindly old professor listening to questions from deferential students.
But did he answer their questions? On #1 (creeping secularism), no. On #2 (about the attrition of Catholics from church), he broadly hinted that church is so dull these days ("Has our preaching lost its salt?" he asked) that it is no wonder people leave. As for #3 (on vocations), he gave a very profound reply that if young people were taught to pray and hear God, then there'd be no problem attracting people to religious orders and the priesthood because God is very willing to speak on this issue.
I predict this speech out of the bishops' session will end up being the most interesting of all of Benedict's presentations during this trip.
One other note: the choir that sang vespers for the bishops was truly exquisite. I managed to corner Newt Gingrich, the husband of one of the sopranos, for a quote for my daily story. Only the bishops got to really spend time with the pope in the crypt chapel but Benedict did make a swing through the main floor of the Shrine itself, to a tumultuous reception by some 600 church employees.
He then went and prayed in a chapel that was consecrated on April 16, 2005, the date of his 78th birthday which was 3 days before he was elected pope. The chapel has a statue of Our Lady of Altotting, a part of Bavaria near the pope's home town of Marktl am Inn. The statue in the Shrine is a copy of the Gothic original that stands inside the Bavarian shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Altotting. The town in which it is located is known as the "Lourdes of Germany" and the present pope spent lots of time there as a child.

And..we have this from our U.N. reporter Betsy Pisik:

While in New York, his Holiness will be staying at the townhouse residence of Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the papal nuncio to the United Nations. The well-monied and normally quiet block, just east of Fifth Avenue, will be sealed off by police from Thursday forward, with traffic diverted and even pedestrians denied. Migliore's neighbors will have to show identification and their keys to get home.

So ... what kind of a houseguest is the pope?

"He is very easy to content," Migliore told the Washington Times.

When asked if his house guest had requested a favorite flavor of ice cream or other snacks, the archbishop chuckled and said "of course we'll take all the steps." He said the kitchen staff is preparing "meals that are nutritious, quick and short" because Benedict XVI's schedule does not leave him much time for seated dining.

Migliore did not sound terribly put out by the security protocols, rigid schedules and other elements that make Benedict XVI seem like rather troublesome weekend guest.

"It is kind of exciting," he said happily.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times