If this visit has proved one thing beyond a doubt, it is that Benedict can go the distance–with speech-making, that is. The morning event at the White House was just a throat-clearing for what was to come tonight. Although President Bush, in his inimitable style, declared it “awesome.” (See video.) (The president also pronounced the name of the venerable church father Augustine like the city in Florida, but hey, who wouldn’t?) Benedict’s address to the American bishops went for an hour-and-a-half, “on and on, more than expected,” as the papal champion and well-known theo-con, Father Richard John Neuhaus, put it diplomatically. It is a meaty speech, praising the Church in America yet frankly stating that priestly vocations are the barometer of a church’s health, and American Catholicism is on its sickbed. He notably dented the bishops’ armor by echoing Cardinal George’s introductory comments that the sexual abuse crisis was “sometime badly handled” by bishops. But he put the crisis squarely in the context of a secularized American society corrupted by pornography and individualism. And in an echo of Lincoln’s Civil War inaugural, he urged the bishops to “bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust.” Strong catechesis is the key, Benedict said. Along with much else. Read the entire transcript here…But it was long. It started late, and Vespers ran over, and the networks had to bail just as the juicy bits started rolling in. One bishop I spoke with afterwards was ready to eat his cassoack, and TV cutaways caught a few prelates nodding off. Reviews are mixed. Stay tuned…