States Dinner Remarks

Your Eminences; Your Excellencies; Reverend Fathers; Dear Sisters; Supreme Knight, Carl A Anderson; Worthy Knights; and Friends All:

Last week Doctor Anderson kindly invited me to speak briefly with you about the “impact,” as he put it, of the recent visit of the Holy Father to the United States and especially to New York. I was delighted and honored to accept the invitation. For I believe that the visit was a splendid success which made a truly powerful “impact” on both the Church and the nation. In a sense, it introduced Pope Benedict XVI to the people of the United States of every faith, race, and ethnic background from Atlantic to Pacific; and the outcome was most positive. The Successor of Saint Peter was seen in Washington, in New York, and on millions of television screens in every corner of our country as a wise, learned, prayerful, and loving shepherd of his flock. Every less than accurate and less than sympathetic image of him was, one might say, wiped away as millions for almost a week, hour after hour, watched him in person or on television. Truth emerged; and truth, I believe, took hold.

While each event in Washington, under the careful direction of Archbishop Donald Wuerl, was nothing short of outstanding, from the greeting at the White House, to the address to bishops, the address to educators, the address to leaders of non-Christian faiths, and the magnificent Mass at Nationals Stadium, that about which I am best informed took place in New York. Permit me, therefore, to touch upon this element of the visit in some little detail.

On Friday, April 18th, at the United Nations, the Vicar of Christ delivered a message of justice and compassion to the world; and the world listened with respect and gratitude. It was an altogether electric encounter, and I have no doubt that it will do immense good over the months and years that lie ahead. That afternoon, at Saint Joseph’s Parish in the Yorkville area of Manhattan, the traditional German community of New York City, he spoke to 300 leaders of various Christian Churches and Communions with vision and genuine love after a brief visit to a nearby synagogue to make clear his respect and, indeed, his reverence for the Jewish community in the largest Jewish city in the world.

On Saturday, Benedict XVI was the principal celebrant at a Mass – both solemn and majestic – in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. At prayer with him were for 3,000 priests, deacons, religious women, and religious men all of whom rejoiced as the Pontiff spoke so lovingly in his homily of the “Venerable Michael McGinley, whose vision and zeal led to the establishment of the Knights of Columbus.” As he left Saint Patrick’s to return to the residence of the Papal Nuncio to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, 200,000 New Yorkers and visitors to New York lined 5th Avenue from 50th Street to 72nd. It was an outburst of love and respect that deeply moved us all – and, in my judgment, deeply touched the heart of the Holy Father as well. In the afternoon the Bishop of Rome blessed and prayed with disabled youngsters, their families, and their care-givers in the chapel of Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York. The power and the holiness of the occasion have been echoed in literally hundreds of communications to my office ever since. Thereafter, the Pontiff proceeded to a huge, grassy field on the Seminary grounds, where 34,000 youngsters and 2,500 future priests and religious received him with cheers, banners, and song. And he, their father in Jesus Christ, their “Holy Father,” wrapped them in an embrace of unalloyed affection and delight.

On Sunday, the third and last day of the New York visit, the 265th Pope of Rome knelt at “Ground Zero” and, in the words of several loved-ones of victims of 9/11, brought that horrendous tragedy to a much-needed “closure” in prayer. Finally, in the afternoon, he led 57,000 clergy, religious, and laity in the “Prayer of Prayers,” the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at Yankee Stadium with all the fervor, enthusiasm, and humble charm that the nation had come to recognize from the first moment of his arrival on our soil. At the end of the Mass, he blessed a bronze plaque to commemorate his visit to New York that was given by the Knights of Columbus to be mounted in Yankee Stadium along with two others the Knights had provided for the visits of Pope Paul VI in 1965 and Pope John Paul II in 1979. Forgive me, dear friends, if I add that all three plaques will be securely in place when the Yankees win the World Series this coming October.

That evening, we all joined Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn to say “goodbye” to Pope Benedict XVI at the John F. Kennedy Airport. “We have really come to like this Pope,” one of our radio commentators declared the following morning. “Cardinal Egan and Mayor Bloomberg ought to get him back here soon. He said a lot of things we all needed to hear, and now it’s up to us to take them to heart.” The language may be a bit offhand. Still, I cannot help but feel that it makes the “impact” of the Pastoral Journey of the Holy Father marvelously clear in authentically American jargon. The “impact” was a blessing – a blessing of faith, hope, and holiness.