Christ Our Hope

During his sojourn in the US, the Pope will mark the 200th anniversary of the Archdiocese of New York, and meet the nation’s bishops in Washington, DC.

The Pope will arrive at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on April 15. On the following day – which coincides with his 80th birthday – he will meet President George W. Bush at the White House. That evening some 350 US bishops will hold a prayer service with the Holy Father at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Guiding the Holy Father at the nation’s capital will be Pietro Sambi, the Holy See’s apostolic nuncio to the United States. It was Archbishop Sambi who officially announced the Pope’s visit last year, during a meeting with US bishops in Baltimore. Addressing those present, Archbishop Sandri said he hoped the Pope’s visit would bring “a new Spring, a new Pentecost for the Church in America”.

On April 17, Benedict XVI will celebrate a solemn Mass at Nationals Baseball Stadium in Washington, DC, after which he will meet university professors, teachers and students active in the field of Catholic education at the Catholic University of America. He will then hold an interreligious ceremony with Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Sikh leaders at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Centre.

On the following day the Pope will travel to New York, where he will deliver an important speech at the UN headquarters. This is also a much awaited event – perhaps even of historic significance. Diplomats and journalists at the ‘Glass Palace’ are quite used to the visits of important heads-of-state, but this time there is great excitement as to what this singular religious leader will have to say. The 192 member states are expecting a significant discourse on the relationship between international laws and morals. A meeting is also scheduled with the Secretary-General of the UN, the South Korean Ban Ki-moon, who officially invited Pope Benedict to the UN during a visit to the Vatican. The meeting will probably be held in the Secretary-General’s Office on the 38th floor.

The Holy See enjoys permanent observer status at the UN, which means that she may intervene in debates, but not vote. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the current permanent observer, will accompany the Holy Father along the corridors of the UN building.

On the following day, April 19, the Pope will celebrate his 3rd year of pontificate at a highly symbolic location for America’s Catholics: St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York, where a High Mass will be celebrated. After this solemn event Benedict is scheduled to address seminarians at Yonkers, a suburb North of the Bronx.

On the final morning of his trip the Pope will visit Ground Zero, the site of the world’s worst terrorist attack in history. He will conclude his visit with an afternoon Mass for 60,000 at the legendary Yankee Stadium, before flying back to Rome.

The first visit of a pontiff to the UN was that of Pope Paul VI on October 4, 1965. This was followed by two visits by Pope John Paul II, in 1979 and 1995 respectively. In his last visit on October 5, 1995, John Paul launched a message of true Christian optimism: “We must not be afraid of the future. We must not be afraid of man. …we can build in the next century and in the next millennium a civilization worthy of the human person – a true culture of freedom. We can and must do so! And in doing so, we shall see that the tears of this century have prepared the ground of a new Spring of the human spirit”.

We are now in the first century of the New Millennium, and Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the US with that same optimism which stirred his predecessor, and which is expressed in the logo chosen for this trip: Christ Our Hope. As Christians we are called to be prophets of hope and workers of “He who is, was and will be – the Almighty!”