Bishops' president says U.S. church finds great hope in pope's visit

Published: 2008-04-16

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The bishops, priests, deacons and laypeople of the United States "find great encouragement" in the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, the president of the bishops' conference told the pope April 16. "Because of the bonds of ecclesial communion, you are not a foreign visitor but a father and friend in Christ," Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George said shortly before the pope addressed the gathering of bishops at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Cardinal George offered a bit of U.S. church history, explaining that before the adoption of the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of religion "it was forbidden in the British Empire to celebrate the Mass publicly." The founding of the new nation was welcomed by the first U.S. bishop, John Carroll, though popular acceptance of Catholicism did not follow automatically from legal recognition, he said. "Bishops have served the church in the United States for over 200 years and the context of their ministry and of Catholic life here was often one of suspicion," Cardinal George said. "Our faith was not pure, our church was unbiblical, our allegiances uncertain."

Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .