The welcome given to Pope Francis was nothing short of inspiring, putting even rock stars in the shadows. In truth he came as a servant and not as a "star." That makes all the difference in the world. As one columnist observed, "He is a remarkable Pontiff, in many ways exactly what Catholics need. Humble, generous, thoughtful, hands-on and transparently ordinary, he is the closest the faith has come to finding accommodation with the irreversible liberalism of much of modern life."

He also appealed to Protestants, agnostics and, I suspect, not a few lapsed Catholics burned by the church's sex scandals. He even spent time with the victims of those abused by his priests and by bishops who shuffled them around parishes and dioceses to hide their hell-bound acts against innocent children. He called the abuse "a very ugly thing"... tantamount to an act of "sacrilege." For some, his mea culpa was not enough. Only time will tell how well he roots out these sexually abusive priests.

Pope Francis exhaled the need for religious freedom and gently stuck it to President Obama by meeting privately with Kimberly Davis (a thrice divorced woman), at his request, at the Apostolic Nunciature, the Holy See's diplomatic mission in Washington. Francis commended her for her courage and advised her to "stay strong." Both promised to pray for each other. I'm sure they will.

Francis also vigorously defended his recent decision to streamline the process for granting annulments, meaning a finding by a Church court that a union between a man and a woman, even if it included a Church wedding, was not really a marriage because it failed one or more of the tests for validity under Church law.

Francis dismissed suggestions that it amounts to "Catholic divorce," saying it still involves a judicial process, and insisted that "matrimony is indissoluble ... the Church will not change this doctrine."

For a church that is concerned about the killing of the unborn, the most notable omission was any direct mention of the "A" word -- abortion. There was just a one-liner that disappointed many. Instead of discussing abortion at length, he went after capital punishment instead.

In Philadelphia at the World Meeting of Families, he spoke of how essential the family has been to the building of this country, and how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement. "Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life."

While he upheld marriage between a man and a woman, he made no mention of the militant homosexual lobby that has been raining down hell on anybody who opposes their behavior and agenda. He decried global warming, but made no mention of the free market that has lifted a billion people out of poverty.

By showing a gentler, more tolerant face to the world, the Pope created a space to be heard in areas where his voice is needed.

His shortcomings notwithstanding, no pope in modern memory has been so approachable, so open to thoughtful to non-Catholic evangelicals like Rick Warren and Jewish leaders like Rabbi Sacks. The cold-blooded Benedict is no match for this man with the expansive smile and a big heart.

While at the World families conference, a Roman Catholic priest came up to me and shook my hand saying he was a former TEC priest who through years of reading VOL had crossed the Tiber. He asked me how I could still stay an Episcopalian with all the heresy floating around. I told him I was now an Anglican associated with CANA/ACNA but this did not deter him from pushing me as to why I had not joined the one true church.

One of the unspoken reasons is that the RCC seems (still) to teach works righteousness. A lot of what came out of the Pope's mouth was about good works, recognizing global warming, helping the poor, all of which are noble things, (which might or might not inspire people to greater personal sacrifice), but nothing about inherent sin which alienates us from God. (Sin is covered in the Mass, I should point out, and so Catholics may well take this for granted.)

Another reason is that American Catholics happily pick and choose from the smorgasbord of papal teachings as to what they adhere to. Most Catholics in America, for example, practice birth control, while eschewing abortion. Fewer than half of American Catholics say homosexual behavior, remarriage without annulment, cohabitation, and contraception are sins.

But then one witnesses a conservative Roman Catholic like John Boehner who was inspired to resign as Speaker of the House after the Pope asked Boehner to pray for him.

But what does one make of Nancy Pelosi, another Roman Catholic, whose liberal views on abortion and homosexuality are at odds with her Church's teaching! What discipline is there in the RCC?

So sin is played down, or not mentioned.

One of the great emphases we have as evangelical Anglicans is that our faith is profoundly personal; the gospel of God's Good News of forgiveness and grace must first and foremost be appropriated by oneself for oneself. It has nothing to do with how many issues we pick and choose from to believe in.

Here I am bound to mention that Brazil is the single country with the largest Roman Catholic community in the world, yet by 2050 it will be 50% Pentecostal! Millions of Brazilians are finding Christ outside sterile Catholic walls. They are discovering Jesus as their personal Savior and Lord and not merely as their institutional savior and Lord. They are rediscovering the Bible for themselves and what they read is pulling them away from their former Catholic churches. What is one to make of this? What are RC church leaders able to say to them?

There is also the charge that the Roman Catholic Church sometimes treats people like docile sheep (pray, pay, and obey) willing to believe everything the church teaches without question. Can one question "transubstantiation: versus "real presence" or papal infallibility? Has the RCC pushed Mary way beyond what Scripture teaches about her? The bodily assumption of Mary is now official Roman Catholic teaching, but Protestants, even the most liberal are not buying it. She is all but co-redemptrix! The list of questionable doctrines goes on and on.

Can one be forgiven the sin of divorce without jumping through man made annulment hoops to satisfy some abstract church teaching not found in Scripture? Where is the grace of forgiveness? One has to jump through mental hoops to buy into some RC teachings.

For many Catholics, however, the RCC holds out a worldview and coherent system of thought. One thinks of a William Buckley or a Ross Douthart. As many thoughtful Christians watch the decline and fall of the West and the reshaping of Western culture by strident pansexualists, the RCC is a safe haven.

For author and journalist Rod Dreher who joined the RCC (after years as a Methodist), but later joined the Eastern Orthodox Church because of the sex scandals in the RCC. He was unable to accept the notion that the RC Church could do anything, or no wrong (and get away with it) because it proclaimed itself the one true church.

I know a vigilant RC layman who once told me amidst the height of the sex scandals that if the Church totally collapsed, there was always the Mass, nothing else mattered, not preaching, not the state of the souls of priests, nothing, but the mass.

But evangelicals and Catholics are talking across the divide. The four horsemen of the American apocalypse -- sodomy, gay marriage, euthanasia, and abortion draw us together in ways that we never thought possible a decade ago. Married Evangelicals can be found in the Vatican advising the Pope on the family.

There is little doubt in my own mind that Pope Francis's appearance in the U.S. was an inspired moment.

As I tramped the streets of Philadelphia I felt drawn in; it felt like a safe place especially the World families gathering. Latino Catholics are warmer than the rest of us and demonstrated that during the peace. Standing in Independence Mall surrounded by Hispanics, Vietnamese, and Catholics from a dozen nations, one got the sense of the Church's universality. These people were the real deal. They had waited many hours to see their father in God and they were not disappointed.

Pope Francis inspired not only hope in them, he was also a unifying force. He brought compassion without compromise. He gave hope to prisoners, made mothers believe that having children was a blessing from God, strengthened his clergy, welcomed "the least of these" and treated children just like Jesus did.

What more could one ask of a spiritual leader than that! He was an inspiration and a sign that even in a country that grows spiritually darker with each passing day, a man dressed in a white robe with a beatific smile, carrying his own bag with a bum knee could make a politician weep and force a nation to briefly rethink its priorities. As Jesus might have reiterated, "If ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me."

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