THE PAPAL LEGACY

January 27, 1999
		Pope John Paul II concluded his visit to St. Louis by celebrating Mass for 100,000 worshippers. Following a background report, Phil Ponce and guests discuss the pope's legacy and his relationship with American Catholic Church.

Jan. 27, 1999: Pope John Paul II makes a pilgrimage to St. Louis. April 8, 1998: The Vatican apologizes for its silence during the Holocaust. Feb. 4, 1998: The head of Cuba's parliament discusses Pope John Paul II's visit. Jan. 23, 1998: What does the pope's visit mean for the future of Cuba? Jan. 5, 1998: Essayist Richard Rodriguez considers the Pope's upcoming visit to Cuba. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Religion.   Vatican The Pope in America Pope John Paul II Biography	PHIL PONCE: For more on the pope and the American church, we turn to George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank. His biography of Pope John Paul II is due out in October. Father Richard McBrien, theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. He wrote the book Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II. And Helen Rose Ebaugh, sociology of religion professor at the University of Houston. She's president-elect of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Welcome all. PHIL PONCE: Mr. Weigel, we just heard the pope invite alienated Catholics to come back to the Church. Is that why he came, to keep his American flock together?
	Energizing the Church?
	GEORGE WEIGEL, Ethics and Public Policy Center: I think this entire visit has been an effort to energize the Church in the United States for the great jubilee year of 2000. Jubilees throughout biblical history, throughout Christian history have been times of reconciliation. This pope, who's very enthusiastic about the vitality of Catholic life in the United States, I think is eager to see the Church in America cross the threshold of the 21st century full of evangelical vigor, united and of great service to society. PHIL PONCE: And, Father McBrien, the unity of the Church that Mr. Weigel was just talking about on a variety of issues, the pope brought some of them up, when the pope talks, do American Catholics listen? REV. RICHARD McBRIEN, University of Notre Dame: Well, we all listen; whether or not everyone agrees with everything he says is another point. But on the issue of calling Catholics back to Church, with which I fully identify, reconciliation in this year of jubilee coming up is two-sided. It's -- Catholics haven't just drifted away and got lost. There are reasons for the alienation and separation and the pastoral leaders of the Church have to hear those reasons, have to enter into dialogue with those Catholics and find out if there's anything that the Church itself can correct in its own behavior, whether it's towards the divorced and remarried, towards gays and lesbians, towards married priests or what have you. And that reconciliation may then, in fact, bear the kind of fruit which the pope so justifiably hopes for. PHIL PONCE: Professor Ebaugh, Father McBrien just raised a bunch of issues. To what extent do American Catholics see eye-to-eye with the pope on some of those issues that Father McBrien just talked about? HELEN ROSE EBAUGH, University of Houston: Well, the recent polls are showing that many Americans do not agree with his statements on morality. For example, only about a fourth of American Catholics say that they would agree that the pope is the ultimate authority on issues of faith and morality, particularly in regard to women's ordination, to optional celibacy for priests, the issues of homosexuality, birth control, abortion. Over half of American Catholics do not agree with the pope's issues of morality. PHIL PONCE: Mr. Weigel, what does that tell you about the pope's persuasiveness with his American flock? GEORGE WEIGEL: Well, these are not the pope's issues of morality. The pope is not an authoritarian imposing his will on the Church. The pope is the custodian of an authoritative teaching tradition of which he is the servant, not the master. Throughout his life, as I've come to understand it, the pope has always believed that speaking the truth in a compelling, compassionate way, will eventually win out. He is content to say what he believes to be the truth that the Church carries, and he will leave this office at some point having laid out a body of teaching quite without precedent in the modern history of the papacy.
	The papal influence.
	PHIL PONCE: Father McBrien, is it leaving a body of teaching where he's been a non-authoritarian teacher as Mr. Weigel suggests? REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: Well, I don't think it would be quite accurate to say there's no authoritarian style in this particular pope's approach to government. But -- and he is leaving a very substantial body of teaching -- more quantitative than in terms of its distinctiveness. After all, Pope John Paul II, is not teaching new things; he's not teaching anything different from his immediate predecessors over many centuries. What we have to deal with here is that the media and the media is not at fault and the general public focus so much on the issues that are divisive, our sociologists panelists, you know, pointed to some of these issues, but the remarkable thing about this visit to Mexico and to St. Louis is how strongly the pope reiterated the social teaching of the Church. He was very prophetic, no-nonsense in his strictures against government which, you know, hold third-world countries still in debt. He was very strong on the gap between rich and poor. He was very strong on opening the doors and arms of prosperous nations to immigrants fleeing oppression and poverty. These are issues which really challenge all of us, including some of those who admire him most for his own hard-line view on matters of sexual ethics. I mean, we all have something to be challenged by, by this pope, not just those of us who have differences with him on celibacy women's ordination but also those brother and sister Catholics who are much more politically conservative than this pope. This pope is a vigorous defender of the poor and powerless. PHIL PONCE: Professor Ebaugh, on the question of the pope's relevance what do your studies tell you as far as the relevance of the pope in the lives of many American Catholics? HELEN ROSE EBAUGH: I think we're learning in terms of the issues that were just reiterated, the human rights issues, the political issues, his siding with the immigrants, that many American Catholics laud that and think that the pope is a great leader in these issues. I think the divisiveness comes when we're talking about specific issues regarding sexual ethics. I think on a lot of the other issues, the American Catholic Church lauds the pope in his stance on social justice.
	A champion of social justice.
	PHIL PONCE: Mr. Weigel, what do you say to those who sometimes refer to American Catholics as "cafeteria Catholics," that they will see certain issues, if they don't agree with the issues ignore them but on other issues that do resonate with them, they'll go ahead and follow those teachings? Is that an apt description of American Catholics? GEORGE WEIGEL: I think it was James Joyce, the great novelist, who said the Catholic Church means here comes everybody. And everybody means this has been always, will be a church of sinners. This is a church in which the pope, like the tradition, has set the moral bar very high. What the pope says -- particularly to young people -- I think this is what's so important about his impact on young people -- is don't lower that bar, keep striving for the greatness that is within you. You're going to fail, you're going to miss, but don't lower the bar. Keep trying and be reconciled to the Church which will help try -- help you try to meet that high standard that you're setting for yourself. PHIL PONCE: Father McBrien, some commentators have suggested that on the topic of young people that the pope is sort of leapfrogging over what might be considered a liberal older generation and going to young people who ironically might be more -- might be more receptive to what some people consider a conservative pontiff. Any truth to that? REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: Well, I would leave that question to our colleague, Professor Ebaugh of Houston because she's the sociologist and she could answer. I suspect that young people generally -- not the 20,000 who were there cheering wildly today or yesterday -- that young people have some of the same problems, in fact, perhaps more intensified with some of the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. May I make just one other point? In praising the pope, and I did so with great conviction, there was a very important op-ed piece in the "New York Times" last Saturday by Professor Jorge Castineda of the National University of Mexico and New York University. He pointed out something that has to be taken into account when we evaluate this great pope's legacy, and that is although he has been very, very strong and uncompromising and prophetic in his defense of the poor and powerless, in his actual appointments of bishops to the hierarchy all around the world, particularly in Latin America, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, Peru, Peruvian hierarchy is almost all totally Opus Dei - PHIL PONCE: Opus Dei meaning - REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: Opus Dei meaning - PHIL PONCE: -- a more conservative branch of the Church. REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: A very conservative, a group of primarily lay Catholics which was born in fascist Spain. And I realize that in itself is a provocative statement, but it was. It comes out of that period. Even the Spanish hierarchy opposed this pope's giving it the personal Prelature status, which is a kind of privileged status in the Catholic Church. My point is that, you know, on the one hand he has a very, very laudable agenda, one that we should rally to. On the other hand, he is installing bishops around the world and especially in Latin America who are really, in effect, working against that agenda or at the very least dragging their feet. And that's a kind of contradiction that only historians will be able to sort out. But it's something which also has to be thrown into the mix as we bid fair well, perhaps for the last time from American soil, to this extraordinary public figure and this extraordinary pastoral leader.
	A legacy of contradictions?
	PHIL PONCE: Mr. Weigel, how about that, a contradiction? GEORGE WEIGEL: The current and new bishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Rivera Carrera, is a deeply pastoral, evangelical man who did not come up through the normal career path of the Mexican hierarchy. The archbishop of Managua and Nicaragua, Cardinal Obando, a man of peasant background, broke the tradition of oligarchic archbishops, was a great defender of freedom in Nicaragua against the Sandinista regime. PHIL PONCE: Let me interrupt you for a second and get back to this country. GEORGE WEIGEL: Sure. PHIL PONCE: How would you - in summary - how would you say -- what would you say the pope means to most Catholic Americans? GEORGE WEIGEL: I think he has given my fellow Catholics in the United States a deep sense of pride in being Roman Catholics at the end of the 20th century, at the end of 2000 years of Christian history. My sense of this is of a Church invigorated, ready to move across the threshold of the new millennium, eager to be both the servant of the world and the bearer of a great witness to the truth of the human condition revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. PHIL PONCE: Professor Ebaugh, what do your studies show how Americans regard the pope -- Catholic Americans? HELEN ROSE EBAUGH: Catholic Americans regard the pope as a symbol of the Church which they love. In my opinion, the Catholic Church in the United States is very vibrant, it's very alive. Fewer than 20 percent of American Catholics say they would even consider leaving their Church. There's a tremendous love for their Catholic Church. They don't always agree with some of the moral laws and so forth that are being passed down but in terms of a love, in terms of a love for the ritual, in terms of a love for community, I think that there's a tremendous love for the Catholic Church and it's growing. I see the American Catholic Church as very dynamic, very vital, and perhaps more so as many of the immigrants, particularly from Latin America, are coming into the United States and bringing a vitality with them, I think. PHIL PONCE: Well, that's all the time we have, I thank you all very much.