Bailing on Benedict

The papal trip to the Holy Land so far has been a beautiful show of Catholic piety and thought. Pope Benedict’s XVI’s weeklong trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories also has been a wondrous display of irrelevance.

This pope, with his narrow vision of Catholic importance, has stepped onto the world stage to reveal yet again how little he knows of real-life challenges and, in this context, the competing religions and politics of the Middle East.

The big news story this weekend was that Pope Benedict pointed out that Christians—the Christian Palestinians caught between Israeli demands and Palestinian political forces framed around an Islamic agenda—were in danger of leaving the Holy Land.

Really? Where was the Vatican in 2002 and 2003 when the white-hot intifada sent such Palestinians scurrying for visas to any country that would take them? Seven years or so later, it is nice to know the Vatican has indeed heard the cries of the Christians—and yes, they are Palestinians--who lost businesses and homes and waved good bye to families in such towns as Bethlehem to avoid violence.

Sometimes it is difficult to know who to blame for this pontiff’s tin ear or his lack of knowledge about the world beyond Vatican City.

The U.S.-based press tried to drum up interest in and even an agenda for the pope's first trip to the troubled Middle East (perhaps reporters were trying, in part, to justify to their editors the jaw-dropping expenses for such Vatican forays). The New York Times in particular offered up news stories and opened op-ed space to John L. Allen, a New York-based reporter for the National Catholic Reporter and a CNN contributor.

Allen, who churns out books that explain the workings of Catholic leadership, tried mightily to cast the aging pope as a peace-maker in the crisis-ridden region. That took cerebral gymnastics even for a writer as well-regarded as Allen. Is there anybody who thinks this pope who offended both Arabs and Jews in the past four years could push, cajole or even chat frankly with either group?

The elderly Benedict that I have seen since 2006 in Rome has firmly focused on reaffirming traditional Catholic values as the world’s top Christian leader. He does not want to be a change-maker or anything like his predecessor Pope John Paul II.

The Polish pope charged ahead intellectually and personally to engage on the issues of the day, including Communism and domination by the Soviet Union. John Paul fell disastrously short on confronting some Catholic sins—pedophilia by priests was never fully addressed—but he made the Vatican and Christianity a force for the world to behold.

Benedict has undone that power. His sermons and letters are theologically interesting but they don't grab headlines for intellectual merit or political acumen. Instead, Benedict’s papal statements are increasingly read for possible missteps or outrage.

Benedict offended Muslims early on in his papacy with a reference to an ancient text that, at first look, appeared to demean Islam as a religion. This past January, Benedict managed to offend Jews by reaching out to far-right clerics who had been excommunicated – and unwittingly pulling in a Holocaust-denying priest among them. Uproar from both incidents drew weeks of terrible publicity.

Missteps were made, Vatican observers have said, because the pope, an intense scholar and shy man, was so focused on his main mission. Benedict sees himself as a pope who must shore up Catholic values. He believes the Church’s strength can be found in going back to the basics. He wants to be a force that reassures the faithful and he doesn't always calculate his statements beyond the Church.

That may be comforting to much of the Roman Catholic world. But the rest of the planet appears increasingly to see this pope as inconsequential to public debate or, just as problematic, too predictable in his approach. More worrisome, some may have already written off Benedict's papacy and, in turn, the Vatican's voice in moral persuasion.

In these troubled global times, that can't be good for anyone.