First, history will be made. It was unthinkable a generation ago that a Pope could be received with the high honors that will await him at Andrews Air Force Base tomorrow and at the White House on Wednesday. When your parents were your age discrimination against Roman Catholics was common and when Pope John Paul II arrived at the White House in 1979, the event was downplayed by President Carter.

Not any more.  After all, one billion Roman Catholics in the world and sixty-plus million in America translate into a formidable group that wields significant influence in the political, cultural, and economic affairs of the nation and world. President Bush knows this and is rolling out the red carpet for the Supreme Pontiff.

It will be an honor for my family to be on the South Lawn on Wednesday when Pope Benedict is formally received – with U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps and all in attendance. It will be a larger arrival ceremony than that which was held for Queen Elizabeth II last spring and will occur on his 81st birthday, no less. President Bush will be hosting a dinner that evening at the White House to honor Pope Benedict XVI and Mary and I are thrilled to be among those who will attend.

The Pope will not be in attendance at the dinner – jet lag will likely send him to bed at the Papal Nuncio’s residence long before the White House affair concludes. But the formal dinner will be an unprecedented tribute to the Pope that caps an unprecedented day. From the time that Woodrow Wilson was the first U.S. President to meet with a Pope (ironically, the last Pope Benedict – he the 15th) in 1919, there have been 24 meetings between Popes and presidents. The fact that President Bush will take the unprecedented step of traveling to Andrews Air Force Base tomorrow to greet the arrival of the Pope’s plane – he has never before done that for a visiting leader – underscores the importance of the relationship between the Vatican and America. No matter how you look at it, history will be made this week, and who knows when the next Papal visit to America will be.

A second reason to care is this: a good number of your fellow students will be going to New York with Fr. Vincent and Katie Wojtunik of Campus Ministry for the Mass in Yankee Stadium on the 20th. It will be great to have Saint Vincent College represented at this Mass, and we have a debt of thanks to Bishop Brandt who helped direct us to some tickets. Seeing this Pope – or any Pope – is a thrill of a lifetime and a lasting memory. I am glad some Bearcats will have that experience.

Third, the Holy Father has a special message for all of us in Catholic higher education. Pope Benedict XVI could have chosen to speak to health care professionals, business executives, environmentalists, the entertainment community, children, or you name the group. But instead, the one group (besides the United Nations) to whom he will deliver a formal address will be at a gathering on Thursday of the 225 Catholic College presidents in America (and representatives of diocesan education offices).

I look forward to being in the audience and hearing what the Pope has to say. Recently I purchased his newest encyclical, Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope), and have begun reading it. You won’t regret it if you do the same. This Pontiff is a thinker and teacher. He spent many years as a university professor and knows the challenges facing America’s – and the world’s – Catholic colleges and universities. I will make sure that you get a copy of his remarks once he delivers them (they’ll be available in Campus Ministry’s offices as soon as we can get them).

So if you get a chance, try to catch some of the TV coverage of the Pope’s visit to America this week, and let me know what you think. In closing, I was asked by Columbia magazine, the periodical of the Knights of Columbus, to be one of five Catholic college presidents to write an open letter of welcome to Pope Benedict XVI for a special edition. That publication is out this month, and in case you didn’t see it (I know the Knights of Columbus members of our campus’ chapter might have seen it but Columbia isn’t exactly available at newsstands), here it is:

Dear Holy Father:

Your visit to the United States recalls that of another Bavarian native, Boniface Wimmer, who left his monastery in Metten in 1846 and survived a stormy voyage across the Atlantic with 18 of his confreres and founded the first monastery and Benedictine college in America - Saint Vincent College, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Abbot Wimmer and his companions scarcely could have envisioned when they settled in the foothills of the beautiful Laurel Mountains that by 2008 this foundation would be the site of the largest Benedictine monastery in the world, a seminary for 59 men, and a liberal arts college that is home to nearly 2,000 students.

When President George W. Bush greets you at the White House on your birthday, he will tell you of his visit to Saint Vincent College last May for our commencement. On that occasion he reminded the assembled graduates:

"Benedict was the saint who helped save Western civilization. Benedict was the inspiration for the man (Wimmer) who came to this country to plant these ideals in American soil -- and founded this College. And Benedict was also the inspiration for the Pope, who took his name in tribute to the Benedictine ideals of charity and community that he believes the world needs now more than ever."

Your Holiness, words can not express our sense of connection to you and love for you -- our seminary has the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation and Saint Vincent's seal has as its background the flag of Bavaria!

Your venerable predecessor, Pope John Paul II, once spoke of education as "the integral formation of students, so that they may be true to their condition as Christ's disciples and as such work effectively for the evangelization of culture and for the common good of society."

Saint Vincent College takes that admonition seriously. We challenge our students to grow intellectually, spiritually and morally so they can make a living for themselves and a difference in the world. Our academic offerings promote the pursuit of truth and the development of critical thinking skills to prepare graduates for the broader purposes of life.

We do not believe that our students' education should be confined to the classroom. This semester alone groups of Saint Vincent students will go to Sao Paulo, Brazil and work in an AIDS home scant miles from where you visited in May 2007; to Calcutta, India, to serve the poor in Mother Teresa's missions; to Newark, New Jersey where St. Benedict Prep is transforming the lives of hundreds of inner-city high school youth; and to New Orleans, Louisiana to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project for Hurricane Katrina families.

These service initiatives, coupled with the academic rigor of our curricula, form a firm foundation that supports all of our students regardless of faith differences. We rejoice in our diversity at Saint Vincent -- approximately a third of our students are non-Catholic and over 100 are minorities. Fully one-quarter of our students participate in a varsity athletics program, and many more participate in other activities. A group of Saint Vincent students recently started chapter 14384 of the Knights of Columbus and it now boasts 40 members.

Without question the vision and vitality of our College flow from the heart of Saint Vincent Archabbey. The 170 monks who call Saint Vincent home - including the dozens who teach here and the ones who live in the dormitories - inspire our students by word and witness. As you noted in your first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, a monastery expresses "an immense service of charity towards neighbor." Our students experience this each day.

May your stay in America be an occasion of great grace for our country and college. Please know that you are always welcome at Saint Vincent where Bavaria, St. Benedict, and Catholic liberal arts education happily intersect.

Jim Towey

President of Saint Vincent College

PS My son, Joe, who presented the water and wine to you at midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 2006, sends all his love!