When Pope Benedict XVI arrives at Andrews Air Force Base today for his first papal visit to America, it will be an important landmark in a remarkable story — the rise of Catholicism in America. In advance of the visit, much attention has focused on the troubles facing the Roman Catholic church in America — dwindling attendance at Mass, closing parochial schools, Latinos fleeing to Protestantism. But take the long view, and the rise of the Catholic faith in America is a remarkable story.

We were reminded of this just the other day by a copy of a new book, “Catholics in New York: Society, Culture, and Politics, 1808-1956,” edited by Terry Golway. The book, published to go along with an exhibit that will open May 16 at the Museum of the City of New York, contains a picture of a silver beaker engraved in 1750 with a cartoon depicting “The Devil Pope.” This depiction of the pope as the devil or the Antichrist was widespread in colonial Protestant America, and anti-Catholic bias lingered into the 1850s, when the avowedly anti-Catholic Know Nothing Party elected the mayors of Chicago and San Francisco and the governors of Massachusetts and California. Some would argue that the effects of such hatreds are felt to this day in opposition to immigration and in state “Blaine Amendments” restricting the funding of Catholic schools.

The overall story, though, is of how Catholics overcame this bigotry and have made remarkable contributions to America. They now represent five of the nine justices on the Supreme Court and, by one recent count, more than a quarter of members of Congress. The church says it has 67.5 million adherents in America, 17 cardinals, 269 active bishops, 42,307 priests, 236 Catholic colleges and universities, and 556 Catholic hospitals. The contributions of individual Catholics are immeasurable — President Kennedy, William F. Buckley Jr., Mayor Giuliani, William Simon, Thomas Monaghan, the list goes on.

Some will attribute this to the greatness of Catholicism, but we see it more as an example of the greatness of America, a place where religious liberty has provided an opportunity for a variety of faiths to flourish. It will not be just Catholics welcoming the pope to America this week, but Americans and New Yorkers of all faiths who can take pride in looking at the long view, and the way the church transcended the opposition with which it was initially greeted to become an important part of American life.