A Catholic priest from California who attended Mass with the Pope in New York at the weekend said afterwards that he thought His Holiness might have been “a little stunned and surprised by the warm welcome he's received”. This is entirely possible. The US has a way of surprising visitors, whether they be Benedict XVI or tourists attracted by the exchange rate and then won over by a diversity and generosity of spirit that defy stereotypes. But the real surprises of the Pope's visit have been for his hosts. Few of them can have expected him to be so candid on the subject of the sexual abuse crisis that has threatened the foundations of the Catholic Church in America; so forthright on the role of human rights and the UN in international affairs; or so disarming on his own youth, shaped as it was by Nazism.

Through the content of his words over the past five days, if not the style of their delivery, the Pope has unquestionably emerged in the US from the shadow of his charismatic predecessor. He has also confirmed for those still in any doubt that he is a warmer, more responsive person than the apparently doctrinaire academic presented to the world in so many headlines on his elevation to the papacy three years ago. Yet his undoubted successes in Washington and New York prompt two important questions: can the Church now harness the goodwill left by this visit to put the abuse scandal firmly behind it, not least by recruiting new clergy in a country where one in six Catholic parishes has no priest? And does the Pope, at 81, envisage a sustained engagement in international affairs - or was his speech to the UN a one-off occasion?

The answers depend partly on the Church's US bishops and partly on the Pope's physical stamina. He has shown a natural ability to move people in settings ranging from the intimate (Ground Zero) to the immense. Hence his farewell Mass at a packed Yankee Stadium yesterday, but also hushed prayer meetings that he held with a group of severely disabled worshippers and, last Thursday, with victims of the abuse scandal from the Boston archdiocese. One of them said afterwards that he had told the Pope: “You have a cancer in your flock... you have to fix this.” Another said: “I believe we turned the Pope's head a little in the right direction.” Yet the plain truth is it was already pointed in the right direction. He condemned the abuse four times in five days and resisted travelling himself to Boston, which would have left him vulnerable to accusations of trying to compartmentalise the issue into one leg of his tour. It is hard to see how he could have done more in these circumstances.

The Pope's foray into international affairs was more measured, but no less specific. His attack on UN members' “indifference or failure to intervene” where sovereign states have failed to prevent suffering was as close as diplomatically possible to a direct condemnation of the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs by which China justifies its support of rogue regimes in Africa - and defies international sentiment in Tibet. His criticism of self-serving vetoes by permanent members of the UN Security Council was, likewise, thinly veiled.

Faith is the bedrock of organised religion. It is perhaps less reliable as a basis for UN diplomacy. The world should, nonetheless, be grateful for the Pope's involvement over the past few days.