Pope John Paul's visit to the United States in 1987 provided many opportunities for the analysis of papal rhetoric. The Pope's address to black Catholics in America may be of particular interest to those focusing on the study of intercultural or interracial communication. This address did not garner as much media attention as did some of the Pope's other meetings, perhaps because this meeting was supportive rather than adversarial. It did, however, provide an important opportunity for rhetorical analysis. Walter R. Fisher's "Motives of Communication" proved to be a useful guide in analyzing the Pope's speech when he was forced to address two conflicting images of the Catholic Church in the minds of his black audience. One image held by his audience was of the Church as a racist institution, the other as a source of spiritual fulfillment and redemption. By exploring the specific ways the Pope tried to accomplish his objectives and the effectiveness of his rhetoric this approach should offer critics a way of evaluating rhetoric that attends to motives previously thought to be completely incompatible. A rhetorical analysis of the Pope's address provides insight into the strategies employed in simultaneously reaffirming a positive image and purifying a negative image. The concepts of identification and differentiation were found to be important to the purification motive and a theme of salvation and uplift established through language was found to be crucial to the reaffirmation motive. (Forty-four notes are included.) (MS)