Pope Benedict XVI is
embarking on a missionary journey to the UK in a bid to get the heathen Brits
back into the fold. But the pope can expect a cool welcome as militant
secularists and victims of pedophile priests prepare to protest.
The Catholic Church is
used to getting nothing but trouble from the British.
It was the Tudor King
Henry VIII who, angry over the pope's refusal to let him end an inconvenient
marriage, began closing monasteries in England and confiscating their property
in 1536. Henry, who was known as the "Defender of the Faith," then
declared himself head of the newly formed Church of England. The king's
favorite painting, "The Evangelists Stoning the Pope," still
astonishes visitors to Hampton Court Palace, near London.
Three centuries after
Henry VIII's rule, British traveler and naturalist Charles Darwin developed his
theory of evolution, a belief the Vatican considered suspect. Darwin's theory
planted doubts throughout the world about Christian creationism and relegated
Adam and Eve, along with the Garden of Eden, to the realm of myth.
The United Kingdom
remains a stronghold of intelligent atheism. Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins
created a veritable bible for atheists with his book "The God
Delusion," while astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has taken the Creator out
of the history of the universe entirely in his new book "The Grand
Design."
Many in Britain appear
quite at home with a flippant sort of agnosticism. One recent ad campaign
plastered London buses with the slogan, "There's probably no God. Now stop
worrying and enjoy your life."
Ready to Retaliate
Now, though, God looks
to be getting ready to retaliate. Pope Benedict XVI, the 83-year-old head of
the Catholic Church, lands this Thursday in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.
The locals there certainly haven't forgotten how Henry VIII's daughter
Elizabeth I brutally ordered the execution of Scotland's last Catholic queen,
Mary, Queen of Scots.
Coming not quite 30
years after John Paul II became the first modern pope to visit the UK, this
will be the first-ever official state visit by a pope to Britain. Tony Blair
was the one who first extended the invitation, back when he was still prime
minister and before he converted to Catholicism. He did so on behalf of Queen
Elizabeth II, whose official titles also style her "Defender of the
Faith," a role rather similar to that of the pope.
This was always going
to be a difficult trip, and it won't make it any easier that Pope Benedict XVI
has a tendency to throw obstacles in his own path. A 2006 papal visit to Turkey
took place amid large-scale protests, after the pope antagonized
Muslims around the world with a speech at Regensburg University. His
2009 visit to
Israel was similarly plagued by tension, after he reintroduced a
controversial prayer for the conversion of Jews to the Good Friday mass.
Cool Reception
Now Benedict has put
additional strain on the Church of England in the run-up to his visit. The
Church's decision to ordain women as priests and bishops -- a "grave
crime" on par with sexual abuse, according to the Vatican -- already has
Anglicans on the verge of a serious split. The Vatican is attempting to
capitalize on the situation by offering disenchanted, conservative clergymen
the opportunity to convert to the one true faith -- Roman Catholicism.
Potential converts from the Church of England would even be allowed to remain
married.
Pope Benedict also
plans to beatify a famous 19th-century convert to Catholicism during this trip.
John Henry Newman, originally an Anglican priest, rose to be a Catholic
cardinal, as well as a prominent theologian -- a man after Joseph Ratzinger's
own heart.
But encroaching on
this territory isn't likely to jeopardize the upcoming visit. Rowan Williams,
head of the Church of England, plans to pray together with the pope at Westminster
Abbey. Indeed, this may prove to be the easiest part of the trip, since many
others in the country have resolved to give the pope a cool -- or even hostile
-- reception.
Indifferent to the
Pope
British subjects can
certainly find cause for complaint in the cost of the papal visit. The pope and
his entourage will spend four days and three nights in Great Britain. The
elderly pontiff goes to bed early and must plan hours-long breaks into each
day. The visit will cost more than 20 million pounds (€24 million or $31
million). And because he is there as an official guest of the queen, the
Catholic Church will cover only a portion of the expenses, with taxpayers
footing around €15 million of the bill.
Only one in 11 British
citizens is Catholic. The vast majority -- 63 percent of the population,
according to a recent survey -- is indifferent to the pope's visit. Yet
everyone is expected to pay -- something three out of four people surveyed
consider unfair. There is also widespread outrage over Benedict's role in the
scandal over pedophile priests, his refusal to endorse condoms as protection
against the AIDS virus and his positions on homosexuals and sex. Pope Benedict
is, in a sense, the antithesis of modern Britain.
Secular groups have
launched a "Protest the Pope" campaign to demonstrate against the
pontiff, and the National Secular Society is selling a "Pope Nope"
T-shirt. Disenchanted Catholics are also planning to protest. Human rights
lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, in a book published last week, even accused Benedict
of crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, a host of papal critics are looking
seriously into the possibility of arresting Ratzinger during his time on
British soil. And on Wednesday evening, just ahead of the pope's arrival, the
BBC will make fresh revelations about pedophile priests.
A Knack for Faux Pas
Police are not the
only ones nervous about the impending visit. The government's coordinator for
the papal visit, Chris Patten, who is the former governor of Hong Kong, has
said that Britain's reputation is at stake. During a meeting at Scotland Yard,
some of the pope's most bitter opponents were advised not to overdo it when
exercising their democratic freedom to demonstrate.
Vatican strategists
have chosen "Heart Speaks unto Heart," a motto used by John Henry
Newman, as the official slogan for the pope's visit. It's an odd choice, since
the former theology professor Joseph Ratzinger is not exactly known as a warm
figure who wins hearts all around.
Benedict's
predecessor, although also deeply conservative, managed to impress opponents as
well as supporters. The current pope, meanwhile, alienates even his allies.
John Paul II radiated charisma and warmth; Benedict XVI is the intellectuals'
pope, with a knack for putting his foot in his mouth. The previous pope grew up
in Poland and fought against totalitarianism; the incumbent was a member of the
Hitler Youth as a boy -- a fact the British press never fails to mention when
reporting on the pope.
The German pope also reversed the excommunication
of Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, and he still has trouble pronouncing
the English "th" sound. None of this makes him a sympathetic figure
in Britain. "The Devil himself could hardly have got a worse press,"
wrote the Daily Mail.
'Saying Sorry Is Not
Enough'
A look at Bellahouston
Park in Glasgow reveals the yawning chasm between the two pontiffs. John Paul
II's mass there 28 years ago was attended by 300,000 worshippers. This time,
for Benedict, organizers have arranged for just 100,000 spots -- even though
they've also lined up British television and singing sensation Susan Boyle as a
sort of opening act. By the end of last week, only 75,000 tickets had sold. One
obstacle might be the fact that worshippers are expected to cough up 20 pounds
(€24 or $30) to attend the mass, only to then put up with uncomfortable
conditions. They will have to wait for hours, umbrellas are banned and there is
no seating.
Sue Cox, 63, from the
Midlands, would like to meet the pope. She would tell him that "saying
sorry is not enough." Cox was 10 years old the first time a priest groped
her. When she was 13, the same priest raped her. Her pious mother knew about
the abuse and told her daughter it was part of God's plan and that she should
pray for the priest. "It destroyed a large part of my life," Cox
says. She finds it unacceptable that Pope Benedict XVI will now be the queen's
official guest. "That's an honor he doesn't deserve," she says.
Victims of abuse are
traveling from far-flung corners of the Commonwealth such as Canada and
Australia for the pope's visit. Benedict will receive only a handful, if any,
of these individuals and likely at a private location, as he has often done
before. The few he does meet will be handpicked by the church.
Excluding the public
from such meetings is a sign of respect toward the victims, says Vincent
Nichols, archbishop of Westminster. Sue Cox disagrees: "Many of us no
longer want to be anonymous." Nichols has ignored her statements.
The Culture of Death
The pope wants to use
this visit to demonstrate that faith is a beautiful thing even in today's
world, says the archbishop of Westminster, and he sees the trip as something of
a religious mission. His concern, according to the archbishop, is spiritual
guidance in one of the Western European countries where secularism long ago won
the upper hand.
"Britain, and in
particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicenter of the culture of
death," claims Edmund Adamus, an adviser to the archbishop of Westminster.
Adamus laments the same things Pope Benedict always laments -- too much sex,
contraception, divorce, hedonism, abortion and laws that allow homosexuals to
adopt. In other words, modern Britain, a country not all that different in
these respects from modern Germany, France or even Spain, once a strictly
Catholic nation.
Of course, there are
also people in Britain who feel honored by the pope's visit. Adamus, for
example, is looking forward to the pontiff's arrival on Thursday and believes
he is bringing a "kindly light" to the country.
Scottish composer
James MacMillan, who wrote the music for the papal mass in Glasgow, also
considers British grousing about the pope to be meaningless. A devout Catholic,
MacMillan calls anti-Catholic complaints "the new anti-Semitism of the
liberal intellectual."
Translated from the
German by Ella Ornstein
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