Primary sources (with comments).

If you get most of your mainstream-media news from NPR -- and I wholeheartedly admit that I do, it's what I usually have on in the car -- you may be thinking that Pope Benedict XVI came to the United States mainly to discuss the sexual abuse of minors by priests.   

It's not that this isn't an important thing to discuss.  It's just that I've listened to several NPR distillations of his addresses by now, and so far that's just the only topic that's merited extensive commentary.   (I noticed, by the way, that he has been careful to limit the discussion to that abuse committed by apparent pedophiles; we can, I think, assume he is not talking in this trip about men who exploited young people who'd reached puberty.   This distinction narrows the scope of his public discussion on the subject considerably--by about 85% of the victim count--and it's a distinction I've not heard made yet in the MSM.)

Anyway, if you are interested in commentaries on his addresses that give a flavor of the pontiff's main themes as presented by, you know, the pontiff, rather than the media-digested versions, you might go to Father Z's blog What Does The Prayer Really Say?  He has been putting up the texts of Benedict's speeches and adding highlights and comments. 

• Fuller account of what the Pope said on the airplane (from a NYT story, with comments)
• Transcript of the press conference (from John Allen)
• Discourse from the White House
• The homily from Mass at Washington Nationals Stadium (and here's more commentary from Fr. Z on the liturgical choices and now commentary by Fr. Z. on the commentary from NLM.  Knowing what Benedict has written about liturgy, I have to say I was cringing for a lot of that Mass.)

I'm hoping he puts up more... UPDATE:

• Address to the United Nations.

Comments

[Derek]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by the comment about B16 limiting the discussion to pedophiles. I've been watching him on TV at home and covertly on the computer at work. He has almost always referred to the sexual abuse of "minors". I never got the sense that his public discourse has been about pedophiles. Indeed, as you point out, most of the abuse did not involve pedophilia but pederasty (sexual abuse of a post-pubertal adolescent). I don't think the pope is excluding this at all. His comments on the abuse have been relatively small parts of his talks, however.

I did like that the Vatican broadcast his meeting with the bishops. As one commentator said, this was done so that the people can directly hear what the Pope said, not hear what a handful of American bishops says the Pope said.

[bearing]

I'm referring to what he said on the airplane. From John Allen's transcript:

"The first is the level of justice, the juridical level. We now have also norms to react in a just way. I would not speak in this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, [which] is another thing. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry, this is absolutely incompatible. And who is really guilty of being a pedophile cannot be a priest. So the first level is, as we can do justice and help clearly the victims, because they are deeply touched. So [there are] two sides of justice, on the one hand that pedophiles cannot be priests; on the other hand, to help in all the possible ways to the victims."

[Derek]

Interesting. The relationship between homosexuality and pederasty is still troubling. I'm not trying to imply that all homosexuals are pederasts, but it is a strong gay subculture with a long history, at least (see the Wikipedia entry). This issue is connected with the abuse issue, but it is complex and will be controvertial. I think he was wise not to address it at this time.

Note he said that he would not speak about homosexuals "in this moment" - it seems to me that he's drawing a bright line by addressing pedophiles (who can argue with that?). And of course, the church expects priests to be celibate whether gay or not. But, perhaps he doesn't want to get embroiled in a public discussion about the role of homosexual culture in such cases when his main objective is to help the church and the victims heal from the abuse.

[bearing]

Yeah, he seems like a "let's attack this problem one step at a time" kind of guy, doesn't he?