'Go, Holiness!, go to the UK -
we will be with you'
Translated from
9/2/2010
For 20 years, I have been covering papal trips abroad, first those of the lamented John paul II, and now of Benedict XVI. And I know up to what point we journalists can abuse readymade phrases that we think are brilliant and lapidary to burnish our chronicles.
But I don't think I exaggerate if I say that the coming visit of Papa Ratzinger to the United Kingdom is surely destined to be the most difficult and delicate of all the tasks that this Pope will have undertaken in leaving Rome voluntarily to confirm his brothers in the faith elsewhere.
Perhaps never have graceful England and melancholy Scotland ever planned a less kind reception for a guest of the Pope's caliber. I am not speaking of the authorities, who have cooperated very well in organizing the visit, but the social agents and concerned interests, newspapers and television, diverse intellectuals and lobbies, who have been engaged with pathetic viciousness in an orgy of booing and namecalling before Benedict XVI has even arrived.
We might say to each of them, "Yes already, we know you don't like him, we know that all too well, but for heaven's sake, stop acting like tavern bullies!"
[Oh you're too kind, Mr. Restan! They are more like crazed pit bulls who cannot wait to physically go for the Pope's jugular!]
The England of Beckett and Churchill, of Chesterton and Shakespeare, must weep for this crude spectacle that accomodates everything from accusing the Pope of homosexuality, to hostile bus ads, and even the intention to arrest the Successor of Peter as if he were a common criminal. Not even Henry VIII would have treated a Pope this way!
But there are issues of major importance. British society is undergoing a deep-seated disturbance that is paradigmatic for the West. They can hardly recognize themselves in the context of so many cliches, the social fabric appears lacerated by nihilism and social engineering, the Brits have played the multi-cultural card with disastrous consequences, and their reserves of spiritual vitality have been dramatically dissipated in the past few decades.
The crisis in the Anglican Church [which has been rumbling for more than two decades] is devastating, and the relatively minoritarian Catholic Church - despite its glorious history of martyrs and confessors - has been more concerned in recent years with being 'accepted' by society rather than proposing the faith with intelligence and freedom.
It is true that some gestures and words from the new Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, allow us to harbor some hope for better things because of his style and approach. But Catholic assertiveness and reason are necessary because in the British Isles, the hostility and bitterness against the Christian faith, particularly the Catholic Church, has reached heights of veritable hysteria.
It is to these British Isles that Benedict XVI will be arriving. He is visiting because he wants to, because he decided months ago that it was a trip he wanted to make, well aware of what is at stake. It would have been easy for him to beg off, and there are many countries who would have gladly hosted him and celebrated the chance to do so.
Besides, he himself had established the rule that the Pope no longer has to preside at beatification rites, and yet... Certainly, he wanted this trip above all for Newman (whom he considered one of his spiritual fathers, or perhaps, more like a brother).
But there is more. He is going for the sake of the faith which is in danger of flickering out like a spent flame in so many parts of the world. Especially in the United Kingdom.
He is going to show his flock in the UK that Christianity has a future, that it is not afraid of being beleaguered by the sufferings and obscurities of our time, that it remains the true guarantee of reason, of that tolerance which is so often invoked but even more often violated, of true justice.
And yet, there are murmurings of "Holiness, you don't have to go! Don't!" To which he must reply, "But of course, I must, and I will. This is what I was elected to do": To plunge, as it were, into a climate of mass rejection that often borders on sheer hatred... But also of thirst, an indication perhaps of the immense need human beings feel for a word of authentic hope.
What would the world be if the Church retreated because of this mass rejection? Let us recall the words of the English genius T.S. Eliot, though they may be harsh: "The Son of Man was not crucified once for all, The blood of the Martyrs not shed once for all, The lives of the Saints not given once for all: But the Son of Man is crucified always, And there shall be Martyrs and Saints, And if the blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps, we must first build the steps; and if the Temple is to be cast down, We must first build the Temple" [
From The Rock]
And that is why he is going, to build those steps, to raise a Temple. After which the freedom of man - and above all, the freedom of God - will decide.
He is also going for those of his flock who live their faith in joy, to encourage them to persevere, to tell them Peter may seem fragile and helpless in the midst of storms, but that he is, after all the Rock, a firm rock that neither the BBC nor the
Guardian nor the purveyors of purple trash can shake.
And he goes for the sake of those who are abandoned, for those who are alone, for those who are drowning in the void. Those who are holding out their arms like the hungry multitudes that followed Jesus.
And so, go, Your Holiness. Go to the UK. We shall be with you.