Jesuit Says That Benedict XVI Is, "Awe-Inspiring"

Jesuit Joe wrote in his blog The City and the World.

I never got a chance to see the last pope, but I can now say that I've seen the present one. On Saturday, I joined a number of other scholastics from Ciszek Hall, Jesuit novices from Syracuse, and roughly thirty thousand young people (including about five thousand seminarians and religious) at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York to greet the Holy Father. Though exhilarating, the event was also fairly exhausting - as any event that involves standing for hours in a dusty, unshaded field on a hot day probably would be. The demands of security as well as the practical logistics involved in gathering such a large crowd meant that everyone had to be in place hours before the Pope's actual arrival. During the wait, the assembled multitude listened to performances by various musicians (Kelly Clarkson was the only one that I'd previously heard of) and got to wait in long lines to get lunch (outside food being prohibited).

At around five o' clock - four hours after the scholastics from Fordham had arrived - the Holy Father finally appeared on the field. It's hard for me to think of appropriate words to describe my impressions of the Pope, though "awe-inspiring" would be a good start. What impressed me the most about Pope Benedict XVI in person were two qualities that I'd noticed before in reading things written by or about the present pontiff: his evident humility and great sincerity.

There's something disarming - and, in a way, refreshing - about this soft-spoken pope who seems more at home in the study than in the pulpit, a theologian who is firm in his beliefs but who can nonetheless listen respectfully to the opinions of others, a teacher who still enjoys meeting with former students to discuss their latest discoveries, a classical pianist who loves cats (and who apparently used to adopt strays off the streets of Rome, until his staff begged him to stop).
Read Jesuit Joe's clear and well written post, that is akin to a passage written into his own personal journal (here).