MELVILLE, N.Y. — Bishop William Murphy isn't the host for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States next month, but he will be playing an important role in events in New York and Washington, D.C.

As the diocese prepares for Benedict XVI's first visit to the United States as pope, Murphy said in an interview Monday that he expects the pontiff to bring messages about Catholic education, parish life and human rights to events including a speech at the United Nations and a Mass at Yankee Stadium.

"He's an extraordinary human being," said Murphy, adding that he has met Benedict XVI briefly four or five times in the nearly three years since he was elected pope. "He's a very, very kind, he's a very gentle person."

Murphy, 68, a Rome insider who spent years working in the Vatican, joked about how the pope "always compliments me on my Italian. He cannot understand how an American" speaks it so well. "I said, 'I've been here as long as you!"'

The leader of Long Island's 1.4 million Catholics said he expects to attend most of the pope's events in both Washington, D.C., and New York due to a combination of factors: He is a bishop, he heads one of the neighboring dioceses the pope will be visiting and he sits on an array of church boards in the United States and Rome.

Murphy will be among those greeting the pope when he arrives at Kennedy Airport on April 18 for the second part of his trip, and will also help bid him farewell when he departs on April 20. He said 5,000 people are expected to say goodbye in an airport ceremony in which residents of ethnically diverse Brooklyn and Queens will perform songs and dances from their native lands.

Murphy also will help celebrate a Mass the pope will say at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

He said the centerpiece of the pope's is the April 18 speech to the United Nations — something his most immediate predecessors also did.

At the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the pope may talk about "Catholic identity" in Catholic schools, Murphy said. Today, "you can go through a Catholic college and never see a Catholic priest or sister," Murphy said.