The visit of his holiness the pope to the United States this week will be an occasion for all kinds of manifestation of deference and servility from politicians and from the press. There will also be the usual speculation about the growth of a specifically or distinctively “American” Catholicism: a Catholicism that, for instance, this week sent me a heavy envelope of material titled Catholics for Choice, arguing against the church’s dogma on abortion. The phenomenon of “cafeteria Catholicism,” by which the faithful pick and choose among the doctrines that do and do not appeal to them, has long been understood. It was Joseph Ratzinger’s role, when he was the right-hand man and enforcer of the last pope, to recall the flock to a more traditional and orthodox version of the faith. The chief interest of this trip, at least for Roman Catholics, will be to see how explicitly he addresses himself to a flock that is too used to making up its own a la carte rules.