Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton looks at the impact Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the U.S. may have on the 2008 elections.

In a sense, Pope Benedict did nothing wrong. Even more surprising, he did many things even better than well.

The papal style in rhetoric has ever favored the general over the particular, the timeless over the topical, and the abstract over the concrete. Benedict XVI's April 18 address to the General Assembly of the United Nations proved no exception to the rule.

David Gibson, author of THE RULE OF BENEDICT, discusses the differences between Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

After Pope Benedict XVI met with leaders of different faiths at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington Thursday evening (April 17), one rabbi flipped open his cell phone, dialed a number and, when connected to the other caller, pronounced, "I'm becoming a Catholic."

Pope Benedict XVI devoted most of his UN General Assembly speech to a philosophical explication of the moral foundations of human rights and of the UN itself.

Pope Benedict XVI devoted most of his UN General Assembly speech to a philosophical explication of the moral foundations of human rights and of the UN itself.

n a live special report on the pope's address to the United Nations Friday (April 18), RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY managing editor Kim Lawton and executive editor Bob Abernethy analyze the speech and how it amplifies key themes of Pope Benedict's papacy.

Today Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II (twice), made a religious-political pilgrimage to the United Nations.

The pope offered a vision of a world in which faith can draw the world's peoples and cultures together instead of pushing them apart.