There’s been a bit of scandal in the UK over the last week or so regarding a visit of Pope Benedict XVI. There’s a lot to cover from this visit, so I thought I’d summarise it as best as I can and bring up some of the talking points.
State Visit
As pointed out in the open letter to UK paper The Guardian, much of the opposition to the Pope’s visit is the way it has been funded. The Pope was invited by Queen Elizabeth II as a head of state, thus rendering the visit an official “State Visit”. This means that the UK taxpayer picking up the tab for large portions of the visit. The cost of letting a Pope into your country? In excess of $20 million not including police protection, which would probably run another $10 million. For a country which has more non-cathcolics than Catholics, it seems a bit on the expensive side.
Third World Country
Prior to the visit, one of the Pope’s official advisors, and member of the visiting party Cardinal Walter Kasper, made a statement that the UK was like a “third world country”. Â Everyone is entitled to an opinion, regardless of how ignorant. Â But the noble Cardinal went on to clarify…
Cardinal Walter Kasper told German magazine Focus that someone landing at Heathrow airport might think they were in a ‘Third World country’ as there are such a variety of multicultural faces there.
Oh, so he’s not just an idiot, he’s a racist idiot. Â Such was the backlash that he pulled out of the tour before it started. Â But of course, this is the Catholic Church, so they can’t just apologize and state that Cardinal Kasper is pulling out of the tour to prevent any offence, no, instead they are claiming illness. Â but once again, public relations aren’t their strong point, so the illness that they chose was gout.
Affecting around 1–2% of the Western population at some point in their lives, gout has increased in frequency in recent decades. This is believed to be due to increasing risk factors in the population such as metabolic syndrome, longer life expectancy, and changes in diet. Gout was historically known as “the disease of kings” or “rich man’s disease”.
I’m sure the starving Catholics in third world countries who are dying of AIDS, and spreading AIDS because this Pope has forbidden the use of condoms have real sympathy for someone suffering the “disease of kings”.
The Pope’s Views
If you’ve read this blog before you’ll no doubt be aware that I find the Catholic Church to be one of the most despicable organisations on the planet. Â We’ve had the the Church, or representatives thereof, claiming child abuse is linked to homosexuality, abusive clergymen weren’t technically pedophiles and generally sweeping the problem of child abuse under the carpet. Â It is not a nice organisation that refuses to face up to its problems whilst simultaneously blaming everyone else for it’s own problems.
The Catholic Church needed a bold leader who would front up to its problems and weed them out. Â A leader who would change the public image of the Church by being more open, honest, accountable and inclusive. Â Instead they got Pope Benedict XVI.
His views on contraception and women’s rights are antiquated. Â His protection of those who abused children is disgusting. His demonisation of homosexuality appalling. Â This does not make him popular in relatively liberal developed countries, such as the UK.
His Speech
Given the controversy of the visit for the points noted above, the Pope (or his advisors assuming he is not the one who writes his own speeches) chose to court yet more controversy. Â In his opening speech he decided to associate atheism with the Nazi party.
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destinyâ€
There are a few things that need to be pointed out in response to this ridiculous gibberish.
Firstly, perhaps we should consider that this isn’t an insult at all. Â After all, he was in the Hitler Youth and later served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the German army during WWII. Â He knows Nazis, and maybe he liked them. Â He may have been comparing us to people he likes.
Furthermore, I’d like to refer you to this:
Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany’s entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years.
A reasonable person might draw some similarities between the views of Pope Benedict XVI and the speech above. Â So who is this person that seems to share the Pope’s views? Â Why it’s everyone’s favourite Nazi, Adolf Hitler.
So what other pearls of wisdom did the Pope have to pass on?
As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny.
What are the “sobering lessons of atheist extremism”? Â Let’s take a stab at them, shall we?
- Don’t put people who are ordered to suppress their sexuality in charge of minors and entrust them with their care.
- Allow the use of condoms because they prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS and HIV. Â Emphasise this especially in poorer countries where good healthcare is not available.
- Don’t oppress women.
- Don’t oppress homosexuals.
Ah, I see the problem there. Â Those are the lessons we’ve learned from the actions of the Catholic Church, not atheist extremism. Â The problem being that the Catholic Church has not learned these lessons, and probably never will.
The Demonstrations
As I write this there are reports coming in of more than 10,000 people peacefully protesting against the Pope’s visit in London.
What’s interesting about this protest is the wide range of communities it has pulled together. Â In many ways, this is one of the great benefits of the Pope’s visit. Â There are secularists, gay rights activists, women’s rights activists, people campaigning for justice on the issue of child abuse and even Catholics who are opposed to the direction in which their church is heading.
But of course, despite all the negative media coverage world wide, the criticizm from all corners and now a major protest, the catholic Church still thinks the Pope has been “well received”.
That level of ignorance is so out of character for the Church and its leaders I’m shocked.
I was rather hoping for a post about the Pope’s UK trip. It is certainly amazing how 2 people can view the same event and draw such opposing conclusions.
For you, “despite all the negative media coverage world wide, the criticizm from all corners and now a major protest, the catholic Church still thinks the Pope has been “well received ”
In fact, the media have, in the main, realised that the anti-papal frenzy that they attempted before the visit was a failure. Noone doubts that there was significant protest, though. Most reports seem to be in agreement with this op ed from the (secular) New York Times:
“All in all, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain over the weekend must have been a disappointment to his legions of detractors…. The protests against Benedict’s presence proved a sideshow to the visit, rather than the main event. And the threat (happily empty, it turned out) of an assassination plot provided a reminder of what real religious extremism looks like — as opposed to the gentle scholar, swathed in white, urging secular Britons to look with fresh eyes at their island’s ancient faith.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/opinion/20douthat.html?_r=2&th&emc=th
Only The Guardian managed to maintain its hostile stance throughout. Still, it is hard not to laugh at the descriptions of the protest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/20/thousands-protest-against-pope – also the vitriol and hatred in the very slogans used (barely printable) contrasts entirely with the gentle pontiff who has no interest in political popularity, but simply presents his message based on decades of scholarly reflection.
One thing is clear: Catholic youth were enthusiastic about the pope’s visit. The Daily Mail is right:
By contrast, the ‘atheist extremists’ such as the biologist Richard Dawkins, the actor Stephen Fry, the lawyer Geoffrey Robinson and the writer Philip Pullman are nihilists who have nothing to offer by way of hope to the young or anyone else.
Atheism is a perfectly respectable intellectual position but these men (they are usually men) show nothing but mean-spiritedness sometimes bordering on lunacy when they called for the Pope to be banned from coming to this country or even, in Mr Dawkins’s case, arrested for ‘crimes against humanity’.
In truth they are driven by hatred of the Church. Mr Pullman actually says that he hopes ‘the wretched organisation will vanish entirely’. It won’t.
Their foaming and often unbalanced denunciations of the Pope reveal their fear. They fear him because he adheres so strongly to traditional Christian teaching and champions principles they abhor.
They fear him because the values he reiterates commend themselves to millions of people and, above all, to millions of young people.
…
How petty and irrelevant these extremist atheists appear in the context of the hopes inspired by the Pope.
…
The lesson of the past few days is that Britain is not quite the deeply un-Christian country that the BBC and other parts of the media would have us believe.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1313493/POPES-VISIT-If-Archbishop-Canterbury-spoke-authority.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz1070xIDtW
All of this, of course, is merely to state popular reaction. Atheist and so many others, in their hostility, and complete lack of understanding and importance of history, missed the poignant significance of so many details, places and events, to say nothing of a consideration of the pope’s words save to dig around for something to sneer at.
I don’t particularly mind people being anti-catholic. Nor do i hugely care if they hate the pope or the papacy. Nor does Benedict. Before arriving in Britain, he clearly stated that he approved of the freedom of people to make their voice heard. What is sad, is that confrontation, anger, fear and hatred is the vehicle for protest, and that there has been no attempt to try to understand the message (or the messanger) and enter into any kind of dialogue. This is certainly what the pope offers. He is a kindly, erudite man, who is comfortable in the presence of those who disagree with him and willing to engage in cultural and religious dialogue.
In the United Kingdom over these past days, the two main groups willing to undergo this dialogue were the monarchy (anti-Catholic in its very reconstitution under Henry VIII) and the Church of England (ditto) and these two groups were certainly richly rewarded by the degree of reconciliation gained. Few people even two years ago could imagine that a Catholic pope would be invited to Britain by the monarch, and would be able to speak freely in Westminster Hall the very place where St. Thomas More was executed for his support of the pope against Henry VIII, a defining moment in the Reformation.
These will be the lasting fruits of the pope’s visit to England. Anyone who truly wanted to protest should have understood that the English people have a strong sense of history and culture and that a vulgar placards are counterproductive to their own message.