On April 15, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI will make his first visit as Pope to the United States. Beliefnet offers full coverage, including, a blog by noted religion writer David Gibson devoted to the visit. Here is a sample post:
As CNS reports, the Popemobile is on its way! I can’t wait till the Magliozzi brothers on “Car Talk” get hold of this one. Popes have almost always used Mercedes (though you’d think the Bavarian Benedict might like a BMW, no?), and this one is a modified version of the Mercedes-Benz ML430 off-road vehicle. Not terribly gas-friendly for this environmentally-sensitive pontiff. But he’s not traveling very far in it.
So as the “Car Talk” fellows would say, here’s a Puzzler for you: When did popes start using Popemobiles?
Stay tuned for the answer.
Read it all here.
David Gibson also offers Six Surprising Things About Benedict XVI, ‘The Puzzling Pope’, which includes the following explanations of the current Pope:
ONE: “He’s not conservative—he’s old-fashioned!”
A Vatican aide to the pope delivered that protest to a friend of mine, and it strikes me as one of the best one-liners about Benedict. In reality, of course, Benedict is conservative, in the classic sense of the word—preserving tradition, preferring personal virtue over systemic change, doing more with less. And yes, Benedict will turn 81 on April 16, the day after he arrives. But his outlook is not about his age or philosophy. It’s his style. He loves the Fathers of the early church—St. Augustine is his hero—and he models his vestments on the Medicis of the Renaissance papacy. His Latin is better than his English—and his English ain’t too bad—and he plays Mozart to relax. Benedict yearns for the good old days. That’s his character, it’s his destiny—and, for the foreseeable future, the church’s destiny, too. On the other hand, for Catholics “on the ground” who are seeing a return to Latin in the Mass and maybe communion on the tongue (while kneeling at an altar rail, no less), calling Benedict “old-fashioned” rather than conservative may be a distinction without a difference.
Look for full, and updated, coverage here.