First Things: The Papal Week That Was

By Richard John Neuhaus
Monday, April 21, 2008

Excerpt:
"The Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, like that at Yankee Stadium, was truly splendid. The immeasurable wonder of what happens in the Mass was reflected in the beauty and reverence with which it was conducted. I will say nothing here about the contrast with the Mass at Nationals Park in Washington. And then there was the rally with 25,000 or so young people up in Dunwoodie on the grounds St. Joseph’s Seminary. I admit to having been skeptical. It meant twelve hours of being searched, frisked (“swept” the Secret Service called it), and kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Including hours of lamentably cacophonous and determinedly loud music by what even fans of that sort of thing called second-rate pop music. I, along with hundreds of others doing media coverage, were not in the best of moods.

The television platforms were in the very back of the crowd, and it seemed to us that thousands of the young folk were quite indifferent to the whole event, spending their time chattering and playing games, even as Benedict was speaking. It was the longest address of the visit. He seemed eager, almost desperately earnest, in trying to touch all bases. Only about halfway through his talk did I notice that the great majority of the crowd was paying rapt attention. Also, my mind was changed about the event when I spoke afterward with a number of the young people who talked in moving terms about how powerfully they were gripped by what he said. “It was as though,” a young man told me, “he made the whole of the universal Church present right there and then. I realized that being Catholic is not just religious ideas and moral rules but a personal invitation from Jesus to follow him in company with his disciples.” Life-transforming stuff. the rest-Excellent! photo