His image is cast in a stern adherence to orthodoxy. He has been true to that, but his first three years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church also suggest he is not exactly the harsh disciplinarian some fans had hoped for — or many critics had feared.

One thing hasn't been a surprise: Benedict, shy and scholarly, has not shown the public relations acumen of his predecessor, John Paul II, who radiated such charisma that not everyone saw his steely inflexibility on theology and traditions.

John Paul, pope for 26 years, outlived the Nazis who overran his native Poland, survived an assassination attempt, and stood up to Soviet communism and Cuba's Fidel Castro. An actor in his youth and just 58 when elected pope, John Paul was a master of grand gestures.

Benedict is decidedly not. That's partly why his first visit to America as pope is a challenge to the Bavarian theologian, whose deeply researched academic speeches haven't always played well in a sound-bite world. One quote, yanked out of context in a speech in his native Germany in September 2006, set off violent protests among Muslims worldwide.

He sometimes seems culturally "tone-deaf," as if he were still speaking just to the Vatican hierarchy as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, says National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen, whose first book on Ratzinger was subtitled The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith. Benedict was head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years.

His visit here could help erase that harsh image — or cement it.

Benedict, the oldest pope elected in three centuries, will turn 81 on April 16 during his U.S. visit. He arrives as Catholics face empty churches and lost clout in Europe, the American church tries to recover from a clergy sex abuse scandal and Islam has overtaken Catholicism as the world's largest religion.

He has made clear he wants to continue the strict doctrines of John Paul, who muzzled theologians he thought blurred the lines between Catholicism and politics, opposed the use of condoms to fight AIDS, refused to reconsider the tradition of priestly celibacy and dismissed out of hand the notion that women be allowed to become priests.

But those who have watched the new pope closely say he probably has been a surprise to Catholics who expected him to appoint more conservative bishops and crack down swiftly on Catholic universities that conservatives see as having allowed students and faculty members to stray from Catholic teachings and values.

Biographer David Gibson quips, "The Catholic right is actually somewhat disappointed that he hasn't been tougher," while the left "is happy not to get a bull (edict) of excommunication in the mail."

Benedict's admirers hope people will come to see him as they do: kind, warm, intellectually open and engaging.

"The pope I have seen for the past three years is the Joseph Ratzinger I have known for 20 — a holy and brilliant priest who knows who he is, a master teacher with remarkable skill in explaining complex Christian doctrines and a quite winsome public personality," says George Weigel, a theologian and author on Catholic issues.

Benedict's first book as pope, Jesus of Nazareth, begins, "Everyone is free, then, to contradict me …"

His first encyclical, a major teaching document, was Deus Caritas Est. "That's 'God is Love.' You could go everywhere, to every topic, with that as a mantra," says R. Scott Appleby, professor of American religious history at the University of Notre Dame.

Benedict's visit is timed to a speech at the United Nations and to mark the 200th anniversary of Baltimore becoming an archdiocese and the creation of the dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Bardstown, Ky.

On the trip, he will address the nation's 67 million Catholics and the world, but he will stop only in Washington, D.C., and New York.

Notably omitted: Boston, the epicenter of the nationwide clergy sexual abuse scandal, in which 5,000 clergy members have been accused of abusing 12,000 children and teens.

The scandal has cost nearly $2 billion in settlements and legal fees and driven five dioceses into bankruptcy. Papal ambassador Pietro Sambi says Benedict will address the scandal "more than once."

"Really, what could he say?" asks David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which has called on the church to remove accused priests more swiftly and discipline bishops who protected or even promoted abusers. "The issue is actions, not words."

'We will see Peter'

The pope will meet with President Bush at the White House, pray at the World Trade Center site and celebrate Mass in Washington's new Nationals Park and New York's Yankee Stadium. About 100,000 seats were available for the baseball stadium events; more than 200,000 applied for the free tickets.

"When he steps off the plane, we will see Peter," the apostle whom Jesus told to "build my church, feed my sheep," says Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl. "He's coming to inspire, to affirm and to teach. He's not coming to scold us."

To the laity and clergy, Benedict will promote authentic Catholic identity: More than going to Mass, it is understanding and fully living by Catholic values. To politicians and religious leaders, he'll emphasize the common ground in natural moral law that rests in reason.

And to all, he'll denounce "moral relativism," which "does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

He won't say anything particularly new, Allen predicts, but much of what he says will be new to the U.S. audience.

"If you stopped the average American Catholic on the street, they would say maybe three things about Benedict," Allen says. "He seems more positive than they expected. He got into some trouble with Muslims. And they heard he wears red Prada shoes."

On those points, they would be right — well, almost.

Like popes for a half-century, Benedict does wear red leather loafers made by his personal shoemaker, not Prada. But they're subdued compared with the ornate slippers of earlier popes, says church historian Matthew Bunson, editor of The Catholic Almanac.

Criticism of Benedict often focuses on three issues:

• His crackdown on seminaries, in which he banned the admission of men with "deeply rooted" homosexual tendencies. Critics, aware of many celibate gay priests, saw it as a slur against all gay men.

• His move to increase access to the 2062 Latin Mass, beloved by traditionalists. Critics say it recalled the days before the Vatican allowed the Mass to be celebrated in local languages, increasing the laity's understanding and participation. He also approved Latin text for a Good Friday prayer for conversion of the Jews, which some rabbis and the Anti-Defamation League say echoes earlier prayers that once fueled anti-Semitism.

• His reiteration of a 2000 document that says only the Catholic Church offers salvation both through Jesus and the Catholic sacraments. Orthodox and Protestant critics say this claim to be the only "true church" discourages ecumenical and inter-religious dialog.

Despite such disagreements, "there have not been very many dramatic decisions that have reached down and changed things in the lives of ordinary Catholics," Allen says. "He's trying to form a Catholic culture for the long haul."

But Benedict, however "charming," is still stifling theologians who challenge ideas about Catholicism, says Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and former editor of the Jesuit-owned magazine America. Reese lost that job just after Ratzinger was elected pope; conservative Catholics had long complained that America gave too much voice to dissenting views on sensitive issues from sexuality to salvation.

Reese, now a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, says Catholic theologians are concerned that "the Vatican insists we continue to explain the gospel in the language of the 13th century."

A misstep with Muslims

It was Benedict's quote from a 14th-century emperor that triggered protests by Muslims.

The pope had gone to the Regensburg university in Germany, where he once was dean of theology, to present a call for a marriage of faith and reason that allows "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions."

He began by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor's slur on Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. No one outside the hall heard the rest — an argument refuting that slur and calling for common moral ground in faith and reason.

Protests broke out worldwide. Benedict said the negative words were "in no way" his own and did not "reflect my personal conviction."

Then, Appleby says, "he recovers from the misstep with his successful visit to Turkey, a seat of all the diversity in the Islamic world. … The lingering impression in people's minds is … Benedict silently praying in the Blue Mosque."

Last fall, Benedict accepted an invitation to a dialogue with Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals. The meeting is set for November.

And yet, on Easter — when converts traditionally are welcomed into the church — Benedict provoked a fresh wave of protests. He publicly baptized a prominent Italian who had been a non-practicing Muslim. Allen says the public can decide whether it was a gracious welcome to a new believer or "tone-deafness to public reaction."

"Benedict is not a pope of the gesture, he's a pope of words carefully chosen," says Greg Erlandson, publisher of Our Sunday Visitor, the USA's largest Catholic weekly. "That, too, is a great gift."

And a risk as well. John Paul could enchant a crowd without words. Benedict cannot. If he veers into lecturing or his German accent is harsh, he'll lose the vast American TV audience, says Lance Strate, a Fordham University professor of communication and media studies.