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John Allen will be audio broadcasting a report on the Pope's visit to the United States twice each day.

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To listen, go to NCR Special Report.
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By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

When a high-profile public figure comes to town, Americans typically use a predictable set of measures to evaluate the success of the trip: how big the crowds were, whether those crowds were tepid or enthusiastic, whether the story played “above the fold” in major newspapers, what insta-polls say about public reaction, and how favorable the commentary is on talk shows and editorial pages.

All those tools have a certain validity, if for no other reason than that they go a long way toward determining what the average American knows about a given dignitary’s trip – including, in many instances, that it happened at all.

When someone says, "We're saying the same thing."
Say, "We are not saying the same thing."
When someone says, "Don't question, just have faith."
Say, "I am questioning, vato, and
I have supreme faith in what I think."
When someone says, "Don't defy my authority."
Say, "There is a higher authority that I follow."
            --Cpe

In an article in The Washington Post, April 13, Daniel Burke, a national correspondent for Religion News Service, writes about how some imagine President George Bush is actually a secret Catholic "believer," and how he has met with and surrounded himself with Catholics during his administration, that his policies have directly grown out of Catholic social justice teachings and that Pope Benedict is coming to see the president and his Catholic appointees specially, as the pope is his ally -- even though the pope disagrees with President Bush's Iraq war and torture.