Today over at the
Catholic Herald site, Luke Coppen writes a leading article concerning the papal visit in September suggesting that it ought to be removed from the political football that it has become to a pastoral visit for Catholics. What do you the readers think? He writes,
The ridiculous insults directed at the Holy Father by Foreign Office officials raise fundamental questions about the papal visit to Britain in September. The Vatican has decided that Pope Benedict will proceed with the trip; but it is under no illusions about the gravity of the situation.
The memo, which proposed that the Pope should launch his own brand of condoms and open an abortion clinic, was more than a schoolboy parody intended for internal consumption. While the authors did not expect the proposals to be taken seriously, their intention to mock Catholic teaching was perfectly genuine. Apologies have been issued, but the question remains: how can Britain stage a successful state visit when the civil servants organising it exhibit ignorant hostility towards the Pontiff?
This newspaper believes that a state visit will be very difficult to arrange successfully, and not just because the Foreign Office has compromised its professional standards. The event has become a political football: in the second leaders' debate, Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg all welcomed it but expressed disagreement with Catholic teaching. Moreover, the fact that this would be the first state visit to Britain by a Pope - John Paul II made a purely pastoral visit in 1982 - means that the taxpayer will foot much of the bill. Secularists, backed by the media, can therefore complain that their money is being used to celebrate an organisation they loathe (though Catholics also pay taxes). Their plans to disrupt the occasion are already advanced.
There is one relatively simple route out of this minefield, and that is to make the Pope's visit a pastoral rather than a state one. After all, its main focus - the beatification of John Henry Newman - is primarily a Catholic event; and one could argue that, by offering his pastoral guidance to an embattled Church, the Holy Father will achieve far more than by taking part in a state-funded public relations exercise. We hope it is not too late for the organisers of the visit to consider a radically different course of action better suited to these disturbing times.
Today over at the Catholic Herald site, Luke Coppen writes a leading article concerning the papal visit in September suggesting that it ought to be removed from the political football that it has become to a pastoral visit for Catholics. What do you the readers think? He writes,
5 comments:
I am very excited about the visit of the Holy Father. However, one thing's for certain: something needs to change about the preparations for the visit. At the moment, the Government has told the tax payer he must pay for the visit, but the Government has not explained how the visit will benefit him. In such a context, I understand why people are, to say the least, a bit mystified.
It all plays into the hands of the enemies of the Church who say "We're not opposed to the visit" (that would be bigotry!) "we just don't think we should pay." It gives strength to their claims that Christians are given special treatment - and hides the discrimination we face.
So the Government must decide what it wants: either get going on the publicity or let it be a pastoral visit.
Is England really as bad as it appears? Most of what I know about 21st Century England is in the hate and venom that I see spewing forth on the Internet. Is England still a Christian country, or is England dead?
I think it's an excellent idea. If we make the visit a pastoral one, the church in England would have to pick up the bill but at least the secular government would not be able to make political capital out of it.
The pox on Labour and the rest of them.
Rob, let's just say that when Lord Justice Laws today ruled a decision to sack a Christian because he refused to give sex therapy to homosexual couples was lawful, he added:
it would be “deeply unprincipled” to confer “any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture”.
“...in the eye of everyone save the believer religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may of course be true; but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society. Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who is alone bound by it. No one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims.
"The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.”
Were I Benedict I would simply cancel the visit at this point. The damage done to the integrity of the visit is simply too great to have a visit that will be either spiritually or temporally successful.
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