As Pope Benedict was putting his finishing touches on the messages and homilies he will be sharing with us these days, the media increasingly turned their focus on him. Much of it was standard fare and predictable enough. Some of it came from Catholics who have hopes that he might say one thing or another that is close to the heart and desires of the one speaking. Some, I imagine, will be bored by his coming and others angry that he is even in the news. The nuncio (the pope’s ambassador to the U.S.) has expressed the hope that American Catholics and the people of the United States in general will come to know him because he is not known as the nuncio knows him. That too is commendable. I, who know him but not well, would want everyone to know the wise and holy, gentle and open, caring and sensitive priest and bishop I know him to be.

Yet, as I was thinking about the nuncio’s very legitimate hope that we would all come to know the pope and thus come to realize what a great gift he is, it struck me that, in comparison with other centuries and other generations, we know this pope better than any but a small group of Europeans knew the popes of any of the past 20 centuries of the Church’s life. Heads of state, kings, etc., knew the popes of their times because they often had to face papal censure when they acted against their faith or their own people. Roman citizens knew the popes of their time because they lived in the city. Priests and monks knew who he was but probably, through most of history, knew little more about him simply because there was no way to know him — except through faith that he would lead the Church into no error and would be the defender of this Church and her faith against the powers of this world.

But how would people have known when the Roman emperor exiled Pope St. Clement to Sardegna where he was locked up in a soldiers’ camp until his body was hurled into the sea to be drowned off the shore of that island around the year 99? Or what of Pope St. Martin, who several centuries later condemned monothelitism and defended the truth that Jesus had two wills, a truth consistent with the great Councils of Nicea, Ephesus and Chalcedon? In his anger the Emperor Constans had him arrested and forcibly brought to Constantinople in 653. After being treated harshly by the emperor’s guards, he was moved to Kherson in Crimea where he died exiled in 653.

What might have happened in England if the people knew what was actually transpiring between Henry VIII and Pope Leo? Would history have been different if everyone could have known what Napoleon did to Pius VI and even more so with Pius VII?

What people did know was that there is a pope and he is the head of the Church. What they have always known as faithful Catholics is that he is the successor of Peter to whom the Lord gave the keys of heaven and earth. As the Vicar of Christ on earth he and he alone presides over the Church “in unity and charity” as St. Ignatius of Antioch described him in the second century. He and he alone is head of the college of bishops. His role and his leadership of the Church is not a human invention but was specific-ally intended by Jesus and is a gift of the Lord Himself to guarantee that the Church, guided by the Spirit, would remain faithful to her Lord and Savior, faithful to the revelation of God, faithful in adherence to the teaching of pope and bishops in every age till the end of time.

There may have been “bad” popes in the sense that individual popes lived immoral lives or were venal and materialistic. But none of them ever taught or led the Church into error on matters of faith and morals. There have been, are now, and always will be, Catholics who do not like some of the Church’s teachings because such teaching inconveniences them or runs counter to some thing they might wish to say or do. They want the Church to be judged by their standards and not by Christ’s. They will have their moment in the sun during the papal visit. Some of the media will insist on presenting a jaundiced view of the Church painted by these angry or self-absorbed Catholics as if it were the Church that should be or might be but will never be.

Yet that same media has given and will give us more information about Pope Benedict than our ancestors ever had about the popes of their generation. That same media will report his words and repeat his teaching which we can hear and read, can contemplate and make our own in our own lives and our own hearts.

So as the pope arrives, I urge us all to take advantage of the media’s coverage and be grateful for the media who will show us the presence of Pope Benedict in our midst from his arrival in Washington to his departure at JFK. I urge us all to listen to his words and be guided by them. I urge one and all to pray with him and for him. And I thank all those in the media who help us know better this awesome Pope Benedict and allow us to be inspired by his example and by his teaching. They are themselves messengers of the Gospel preached by this Father of us all, the successor of the Apostle Peter, Benedict, sent by God to be a blessing, a benediction for the Church in our country and for us all. Ad multos Annos, Pope Benedict XVI!