A Bronx Detour Could Prove Edifying for Benedict

Strung across the front of the St. Rita of Cascia Church rectory in the Mott Haven section of the this week is a banner with Pope Benedict XVI's image superimposed over a photo of the church's squat, one-story sanctuary.

Behind the pope's raised arms are immaculate white-washed walls and a red-tiled roof, which could give the impression he is visiting a church in one of the Latin American countries that St. Rita's mostly Hispanic parishioners call home, not an especially rough corner of what may be the most impoverished congressional district in the nation.

The banner reflects the wishful thinking of the church's priest that the pope might make a detour Building Decoration this Sunday on his way to a few blocks away, as his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, did during a trip to the Bronx in the 1970s. But with security concerns now at an all-time high and because of the neighborhood's particularly negative reputation for violence and drug crime, the Reverend Jose Gutierrez and his parishioners realize their dream is unlikely to be fulfilled — no matter that St. Rita is the patron of the impossible.