After the Pope’s visit to the U.S., our debaters discuss his impact on our country

The Pope Inspires A Growing Faith

During his visit to the U.S., over half a million people traveled to see the pope personally. Some 100 million listened to his speeches on TV, radio and the Internet. He dominated the front page of every major newspaper for five days straight.
I can’t think of any other individual who has such an impact upon landing in our country. And yet some pundits claim that the pope is irrelevant to the Catholic church in the United States, even despite the fact that his speeches and gestures are still echoing through the media. Even more importantly, his presence gives coverage to the usually underreported Catholic community.
I don’t question the sincerity of those who think that the pope is irrelevant. I know the argument too well: Americans clap and cheer at the pope during his visits. But after he leaves, everyone returns to their own lives, and the number of Catholics who believe in contraception, favor abortion or oppose any of the church’s doctrines remains the same. True. But does that make the pope irrelevant to the U.S., and especially to American Catholicism?
All of the recent polls about religion have systematically ignored the fact that there is a growing number of militant Catholics. Especially among the youth, these fervent believers are becoming very serious about their faith.
The decline of cultural Catholicism in former Catholic strongholds such as Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia is paired with a less evident—but far more significant—growth in the number of those who make their Catholicism the central axis of their lives.
According to official Vatican statistics, the number of priests in the U.S. has increased by 1.5 percent. But that growth has not been evenly distributed geographically: In so-called “conservative” dioceses (Phoenix, Denver, Fargo, Madison, Oakland, to name a few), the increase in priestly vocations has gone up between ten and 30 percent.
Meanwhile, the “new generation” of Catholics has been growing by more than 20 percent a year. These are strong, pro-Benedict ministries that engage youth across the country, such as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), the catechetical movement “Totus Tuus” (which began in Wichita, Kan. and spread across the Western states), the Christian Life Movement and others.
This youth commitment is also evidenced in the multiplication of Catholic-oriented activities for young adults such as “Theology of Tap,” a monthly event held at local bars in more than 20 U.S. cities.
And this growing group not only loves, but listens carefully to Papa Ratzi. To ignore the force of this committed minority—which is beginning to play a key role in politics, academics and culture—is simply to ignore the power of his ideas.
This Catholic minority has been empowered by Pope Benedict’s idea that it isn’t numbers that matter so much as strength of conviction. In other words, the power of Catholics to influence the nation will not depend on numbers, but on the intensity with which they live their faith, in the integrity of that faith and in their willingness to aspire to sainthood in their daily lives.
This influential Catholic minority includes the four conservative Catholic Supreme Court judges: Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and John Roberts. Robert P. George at Princeton University, Laura Ingraham and Robert Novak also head up the long list of influential believers.
Even a whole new market of Catholic merchandise has been created. This generation has turned Catholic conservative publishing houses such as Ignatius Press and Basilica Press into very profitable businesses. They have also created a market for products that are inspired by and engage with the faith: dating sites such as Ave Maria Singles, Catholic Match and Singles of the Eucharist; and mobile resources, which offer Pope Benedict wallpapers and “the pope’s quote of the day.”
Arguing that “nothing has changed” after the pope’s visit shows an ignorance of the intellectual appeal of Pope Benedict that he had even before he was appointed as the pope. For example, his books were well known even before he was elected to succeed John Paul II. Now, his book Jesus of Nazareth has sold more than two million copies.
It also underestimates the power of the new generation of loyal Catholics who were deeply inspired by his predecessor, John Paul II, and see in Benedict a worthy successor.
In the end, the relevance of Pope Benedict is, in a sense, an irrelevant discussion. Destiny is shaped by demography and powerful ideas. Benedict’s Catholics in the U.S. have both.
So just wait and see.

Alejandro Bermudez was born in Peru. He became the Latin American correspondent of several Catholic news organizations and is now the Director of Catholic News Agency based in Denver, Colo.

Pope is Out of Touch with Catholics

I do not think the pope is relevant anymore. If the Catholics who disagree with his teachings were to stay at home instead of going to church or stop giving money, the church would just disappear.
I think that most American Catholics are much more progressive than the pope they claim is their pipeline to a deity. In a sense, he’s very irrelevant.
For example, most Roman Catholics use birth control over the course of their lifetime. Catholic women do have abortions, but usually at slightly disproportionate rates to the population because they have been discouraged not to do so. Furthermore, many Catholics are gay or have gay children or gay relatives that they love.
You can kind of go on and on in talking about the lack of relevance of the official papal policy to American Catholics.
However, they are wedded to that policy out of a sense of loyalty and nostalgia, and because they’ve been told that it’s good to be religious and that this is the one true church. But in terms of their commitment to its doctrine, most Catholics greatly diverge from the pope’s teachings.
When he has spoken out against the war, for example, that has probably given him some brownie points with progressive Catholics. But when he visited this country, I didn’t hear a peep about the war, did you?
He was on a mission to be making nice-nice with President Bush, and vice-versa. He didn’t use this podium at all to denounce the war. And I think that shows the new pope’s ideological commitment: He is committed to his religion rather than to a more progressive ideology.
The Catholic church has certainly lost touch with the American constituency. There has also been speculation for years that there might be a break, that an American Roman catholic Church might develop someday.
When he goes around to third-world countries, on the other hand, he receives the kind of sheep-following that he’s craving. He goes around preaching to overpopulated countries that have epidemic rates of AIDS and HIV that they shouldn’t be using condoms or birth control. That, to my mind, is evil.
He has the power to alleviate much suffering worldwide with just one or two words (“use birth control, use condoms”). He could do so much good, and yet he goes around doing the opposite.
I think that American Catholics should hold him accountable for the harms caused by his doctrine. They are not following it themselves, but it causes so much unnecessary suffering, overpopulation and environmental hazards all around the world.
Not only is the pope totally irrelevant, but also his vicious attack on secularism—trying to blame the scandal of pedophilic priests on the sins of our society—makes him a hypocrite.
There are many, many Catholics whose lives have unfortunately been touched by this scandal of pedophilic priests, and he was sort of forced for PR purposes to say something about it. He in reality said so very little that was useful: What’s he going to do about it?
Actions speak louder than words. Since the 1960s, at least, the Vatican has had a policy of hiding all the crimes that are reported, handling it internally and playing musical chairs with men who have been accused of terrible crimes involving tens of thousands of children. So, what’s relevant about that?
The indoctrination is so intense that many Roman Catholics feel that they can’t cut the umbilical cord with the Church because it would be like spitting on their mother.
Somehow they think that it is a sacred institution and even if they disagree with it they’ll have to prop it up, and I think that is very unfortunate. I think that this is a scandal-ridden, incredibly wealthy and immensely harmful (for the most part) institution.
I think that the time has come for thinking Roman Catholics to make known their dissent from the church.
If they continue to come out in the tens of thousands—if not millions—to fawn over the pope every time he comes to visit this country, then he’s not going to get the message. We disagree with his views on birth control and abortion; his really vicious views on gays; his global assault on the idea of civil unions and gay marriage; and the inaction of the church hierarchy to the scandal of pedophilic priests.
It is really time for American Catholics to say they’ve had enough.

Annie Laurie Gaylor is the co-president and co-founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the separation of church and state. She is also the editor of Freethought Today, the only freethought newspaper in the U.S., and the author of three books.