Pope Benedict’s visit, Robert Royal said: “That the Pope will be able to show Americans what a thoughtful and creative person he really is. He is a great teacher. His former students almost always say he was their favorite professor — always the most engaging and best prepared.” To the same question, journalist Francis X. Rocca said he hopes Americans will lis- ten: “Most people don’t know Benedict as a writer and thinker, so I hope people in the States take the opportunity to listen at some length to what he has to say, which is deeply stimulating whether or not you agree with it.”


And so he comes bringing hope, as he did in a sermon given at last year’s Christmas Eve Mass. “In some Christmas


scenes from the late Middle Ages and the early Modern period,” the Pope said, “the stable is depicted as a crumbling palace. It is still possible to recognize its former splendor, but now it has become a ruin, the walls are falling down; in fact, it has become a stable.”


He went on to say that Christ rebuilds the palace, and what he “rebuilds is no ordinary palace. [Christ] came to restore beauty and dignity to creation, to the uni- verse: This is what began at Christmas and makes the angels rejoice.” It is a truth the Pope believes with all his heart will be lived out in the souls of men and women of goodwill every- where: in Europe, Africa, Asia — and yes, in the United States.


“I hope people


in the States take the opportunity to listen at some length to what he has to say, which is deeply stimulating whether or not you agree with it.”


POWER OF PRAYER The strategic goals of the 265th pope (here praying during a visit to Loreto, Italy) remain somewhat of a mystery. But his willingness to fi ght for what’s right is never in doubt.


APRIL 2008 / NEWSMAX 63


STEFANO SPAZIANI/ACTION PRESS/ZUMA PRESS


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