On the third day of his visit to the United States, Pope Benedict will celebrate Mass in Washington's new baseball stadium, address Catholic educators and meet with leaders of five non-Christian religions.
More than 45,000 Catholics who received the sought-after tickets will pack Nationals Park for Thursday's Mass, the first of two that Benedict will say while in the United States. He also plans a Mass in New York's Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Benedict has spoken twice of his "deep shame" at the scandal of priests sexually abusing minors and his sermon at the Mass could be another occasion to mention the scandal that rocked the Church in 2002 and cost U.S. dioceses $2 billion in damages.
His speech to the heads of Catholic universities and schools has prompted media speculation that he will chide the educators for not defending Church teachings and enforcing Church moral codes strongly enough. But Benedict has avoided controversy so far, preferring to impart an upbeat message to his audience even if he expresses concern about certain issues, and experts expect any criticism to be mild.
"My guess is that Benedict might present a strong statement about Catholic character, but probably not what I would call a rebuke," said Timothy Matovina, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.
"There are varied views on whether a rebuke is warranted. My own is that I have some concerns, but on the whole the Catholic colleges and universities perform superb service for the Church, Catholics and the wider society," he said. The Roman Catholic Church runs 251 institutes of higher education in the United States, far more than anywhere else in the the world, but many of them have more non-Catholic teachers and students than several decades ago.
Many of the leading Catholic universities say they cannot keep up their academic reputations if they do not take the best faculty and students, regardless of religion. This has led to concern in the Church that these universities were losing their specifically Catholic identity and becoming little different from secular institutions. The inter-faith meeting, a regular feature of his travels abroad, will bring Benedict together with 220 members of the Jewish, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist and Hindu religions.
A Sikh religious leader was barred by the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for security during the visit, because he insisted on wearing the "kirpan" ceremonial dagger that all baptized Sikhs are supposed to carry with them.