Benedictions: The Pope in America

Here is the statement from SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests)…SNAP is the engine whose efforts led to this pass, but they also remain on the outside of this meeting, and pushing for more. The meeting between the pope and several Boston victims in a sense puts the ball back in SNAP’s court.…

In a move that could truly be described as a breakthrough after more than six years of crisis for the church in the United States and decades of agony for victims, Pope Benedict XVI this afternoon met with several victims of clergy abusers. The story is developing but the AP report says that Benedict and…

By Jonathan Rubin c. 2008 Religion News Service WASHINGTON — As the sun rose over the sparkling new Nationals Park baseball stadium, the weather turned from chilly to warm to downright glorious — not unlike the feelings many Catholics here expressed for their new pope. As Pope Benedict XVI met 46,000 members of his American…

Read the text of Pope Benedict’s homily at Nationals Park this morning:

By Jeff Diamant c. 2008 Religion News Service They gathered in the Italian hillside town of Assisi. In October 1986, at the place where St. Francis famously preached repentance in the 1200s, top representatives from 15 religions stood together and prayed, one at a time, for peace. The event was convened by Pope John Paul…

By Daniel Burke and Adelle M. Banks c. 2008 Religion News Service WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI told the nation’s Catholic bishops Wednesday (April 16) that they must heal the “enormous pain” caused by the clergy sexual abuse scandal by ministering to victims, guiding demoralized priests and confronting sexual immorality in the wider culture. “It…

In a post yesterday on the roots of Benedict’s “conversion” on the issue of sexual abuse by priests–and the enabling behavior of many bishops–I recounted the story of Anne Burke, a widely-respected Illinois jurist and former head of the National Review Board of prominent lay Catholics charged with holding the bishops to their word in…

No, not the pope. He won’t arrive for a couple hours yet. But they just interviewed the other great ballplayer, er, Catholic, in the house, Mike Piazza. Broadcast on the stadium Jumbotron. Couldn’t hear anything, but no matter. Check out this Catholic Digest piece on the future Hall of Famer. Even if the NL had…

I’d never had breakfast at a ballpark, until today. And I’d never been to the new Nationals Stadium, until we entered early this ayem through the security checkpoints and pre-dawn darkness. A gentle way to start the day, this first public liturgy by the pope. The place will soon be jammed, however, with some 45,000…

If this visit has proved one thing beyond a doubt, it is that Benedict can go the distance–with speech-making, that is. The morning event at the White House was just a throat-clearing for what was to come tonight. Although President Bush, in his inimitable style, declared it “awesome.” (See video.) (The president also pronounced the…

David Gibson
about

David Gibson

DAVID GIBSON is an award-winning religion journalist, author, filmmaker, and a convert to Catholicism. He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s.

Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name "Karol Wojtyla," and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States.

When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation.

Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism.

Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a "powerful" and "first-rate" treatment of the crisis from "an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber."

His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as "an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book" from "a master storyeller."

Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.

read full bio
More from Beliefnet and our partners
Close Ad