POPE BENEDICT'S six-day visit to the United States rose capably and authoritatively to the many challenges it posed.
He caught the imagination of his 67 million flock there, attracting a wider national and international audience for his message of healing, reconciliation and ethical engagement based on natural and divine law. This was a consistently well-judged performance, sensitive to the US context yet with an abiding eye for its universal significance. It is good to be reminded that leadership of this calibre can be delivered so effectively.
The Catholic Church in the US is one of the strongest and most influential in the world. Yet clerical abuse has cost it some $2 billion in settlements, more than 5,000 priests have been accused of sexually abusing some 12,000 children in cases going back five decades, hundreds of priests have been removed from their positions and a number of dioceses have declared bankruptcy. Its dioceses are experiencing shortages of priests and diminishing congregations and are divided between conservative and liberal wings.
Although the church's numbers have been replenished and its spirit reanimated by Hispanic immigration, it also faces competition from resurgent Pentecostalist churches which have a broader emotional appeal. Most US Catholics disagree with their church's official teaching on contraception, HIV/Aids, the ordination of women and are quite dissatisfied with how its leaders have handled the clerical sex abuse issue.
This visit has addressed many of these problems directly or indirectly. In an interview before he arrived the Pope said he is "deeply ashamed" of the sex abuse scandal, saying "no words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse" and he put it centre stage in his public addresses. Most impressive was his decision to meet six victims from Boston and their grateful acceptance of his repentant message afterwards. The lessons to be drawn from this encounter should be learned in Ireland as well as the US. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's forthright treatment of it is clearly in line with the Vatican's.
Pope Benedict praised the central role of religion in American public life, compared to its restricted presence in more secular Europe. He used this difference to highlight several of his messages about contemporary spirituality. During his homily at New York's St Patrick's Cathedral he used the building as a rich metaphor for his church's religious and human relevance. He appealed for reconciliation between those divided by the Second Vatican Council and drove home his message of unity. Speaking to the United Nations he defended multilateral diplomacy as well as the right to intervene in defence of human rights. And in his address at Yankee Stadium yesterday he called on US Catholics to redouble their religious and social engagement.
In the three years since he was elected Pope, Benedict has made it clear that he is a more complex and rounded figure than previous knowledge of his orthodoxy might have led the world to expect. That growing stature has been confirmed by this successful visit.