UNDATED) You only get one chance to make a first impression. This is Pope Benedict XVI’s big chance. I hope the pope chooses his words carefully. (I’m sure he will.) And I hope he speaks from his heart and leaves the more heady rhetoric for later. Benedict’s American flock is in flux, and it’s been a rough couple of years. To put it plainly, American Catholics need a pep talk. They need to hear words of solace from the man who leads them (even if many of them don’t agree with everything he says about social issues or doctrine.) They need to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, the one who would go looking for them even if they were the only sheep lost in the whole world. Doctrine and dogma and rules and even most theology can wait. What the Catholic Church needs now is love. Just … love.