Another voice of reason in the British media that is most welcome...
I disagree with many of his teachings.
But those who oppose Pope Benedict's
visit are the real bigots
By Stephen Glover
Sept. 9, 2010
When Pope Benedict XVI touches down in Edinburgh next Thursday at the start of a four-day state visit to Britain, he may be forgiven for thinking he is not particularly welcome. The Devil himself could hardly have got a worse press.
For the first time in my memory, there has been constant coverage in parts of the media, especially the BBC, about the costs to the taxpayer of such a visit, put at some £10 million. At a time of belt-tightening this expenditure is considered by some to be scandalous.
Yet I can’t recall many people querying the costs of previous state visits to Britain. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is a misogynist polygamist, whose corrupt government is now bearing down on a free Press. Very few complained that the red carpet was being rolled out for him, and the fine wines uncorked, when he came here in March.
Worse still, Pope Benedict is being treated in some quarters as though he were a war criminal.
In a newspaper article yesterday, the well-known Leftist barrister Geoffrey Robertson suggested that instead of offering him a state visit we should be preparing a legal case against him because he has not dealt with sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church as robustly as he should have.
In an even more extreme — if not lunatic — vein, the militant atheist and Christian-hater Richard Dawkins suggested a few months ago that he might orchestrate a ‘citizen’s arrest’ of Pope Benedict during his visit to Britain for ‘crimes against humanity’.
Mr Dawkins was only 37, and perhaps too young to contemplate a citizen’s arrest, when the blood-soaked tyrant President Nicolae Ceausescu made a state visit to Britain in 1978, staying at Buckingham Palace with the Queen. But I can’t remember anyone advocating locking up Mr Ceausescu.
Many of the things being said and written about Pope Benedict XVI are not merely
discourteous to an 83-year-old man [Thank God for someone who brings this up! I've always found it one of the most deplorable things that hardly no one in MSM seem to have any respect for age, an unthinkable state of affairs in all traditional societies!] who is leader of more than a billion Catholics in the world, not to mention six million in this country. They are also nasty, and
reveal disturbing traits of intolerance among this country’s supposedly liberal intelligentsia.
[I wouldn't use the verb 'reveal', but 'confirm' - because the liberal intelligentsia in our time have always been characterized by 'free speech for me but not for thee' who are completely oblivious that their intolerance is a fundamental contradiction of everything they profess!]
Let me declare that I am not a Roman Catholic. If I am wholly honest, I suppose that, like many Englishmen brought up on tales of the Spanish Armada and the Roman Catholic Queen ‘Bloody Mary’, I retain a few traces of anti-Catholicism that are largely irrational.
More rationally, as an Anglican whose father was a clergyman in the Church of England, I resent the Roman Catholic view, promulgated as recently as 1896, that Anglican orders are invalid.
[They are invalid for the Catholic Church, that's all the Church is saying - not invalid for Anglicans! It is nothing personal, but a historical necessity. Catholic priests and bishops must be ordained by bishops in the apostolic succession - which does not exist in the Church of England, but does in the Orthodox Churches.]
The Archbishop of Canterbury is by this definition little better than a witch doctor. As for the doctrine of ‘Papal Infallibility’, first proclaimed in 1870, that seems barmy.
[With all due respect to Glover, he should read up what 'papal infallibility' really means before he pronounces on it so cavalierly!]
Nor do I agree with some of the moral teachings of this Pope, or his charismatic predecessor, Pope John Paul II, on matters such as birth control or women priests or homosexuality, which Pope Benedict once described as a tendency towards an ‘intrinsic moral evil’, though he has on other occasions demonstrated some understanding for gays.
Despite these reservations, which will be shared in varying degrees by lots of people, including many Roman Catholics, I nonetheless acknowledge that Pope Benedict expounds what he believes is Christian doctrine in a courageous way.
Unlike many bishops in the Anglican Church, he does not bend to fashionable secular trends, and holds fast to beliefs which are those of the traditional Church. Isn’t that admirable?
And before he is dismissed as a fuddy-duddy ultra conservative, we should remember that he criticised the Anglo-American imbroglio in Iraq, and recently spoke out against the sudden forced expulsion of Roma gipsies by the French Government.
[The point is not the positions he may have taken that are similar to what liberals espouse - but that these positions are always consistent with what the Church teaches, and has absolutely nothing to do with being conservative or liberal!]
Whatever else, Pope Benedict is a humane man.
As for the countless heinous cases of child abuse involving Catholic priests, it can certainly be argued that, like his predecessor, Pope Benedict was slow to grasp the severity and extent of the problem. But despite ingenious attempts to implicate him in some way, there is no evidence at all that he condoned what took place. I believe in the sincerity of his expressions of regret.
Here, surely, is a good, clever and holy man with whom we can disagree on some, or even many, issues.
But he is not a monster and child abuser to be vilified as though he has deliberately committed acts of evil.
In his newspaper article
Geoffrey Robertson imagined the Pope ‘engaging in hate-preaching against homosexuals or allowing the Catholic Church to operate a worldwide sanctuary for child abusers’. Who is the extremist here?
I have been trying to puzzle out the sheer bloody-mindedness and unreasonableness of some of the Pope’s critics.
In part it must arise from ancient feelings of fear and hatred about the Vatican and the Papacy which run very deep in this country for well-known historical reasons, and which I have owned up to sharing, albeit in a tiny degree.
But
there is something else at work, even more intolerant. It is the voice of secular humanism.
I accept, of course, that lots of secular humanists are tolerant and reasonable people. But there is a hard-core which embraces and promotes atheism with the blind fervour of religious zealots.
Richard Dawkins is my prime exhibit, but there are many others. Such people can just about put up with
wishy-washy Anglican clerics who substitute fashionable secular platitudes for traditional beliefs, and often display a very faint faith in God.
What these zealots find detestable in Pope Benedict is not only his utter refusal to buy into their secular liberal beliefs, but also his power and effectiveness in sustaining an alternative, God-based moral system.
Parts of the BBC — the Today Programme on Radio 4, for example — offer the secularist zealots an ever-increasing platform from which to undermine Christian belief. Mr Dawkins is a great favourite.
So is a philosopher called Anthony Grayling, who campaigns against Christianity. He was at it again on the Today Programme yesterday morning.
It is difficult to disagree with Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, who recently accused the BBC of ‘a consistent anti-Christian bias’.
The Cardinal noted that the BBC — whose director-general Mark Thompson is, strangely, a Catholic — is broadcasting a programme on the eve of the Pope’s arrival called Trials Of A Pope. He suggested, rightly I am sure, that this will be a ‘hatchet job’.
Notwithstanding all the hatchet jobs that have been executed and others that are planned, Pope Benedict’s visit will probably make a deep impression on many people, including non-Christians.
We may not agree with everything he says, or even with his most fundamental beliefs. But his visit should be welcome because he is something rare in the modern world. A decent man of principle.
Thank you, Mr Glover, for being objective and honest! God bless...
Now some Protestants are joining
the anti-Benedict protesters
Sep., 9, 2010
A new group has announced that it is going to protest against the Holy Father’s visit, the Protestant Truth Society, in co-operation with other Protestant organisations. They plan to protest during Pope Benedict’s attendance at Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Christian leaders. on the 17th September.
According to their publicity "appropriate scriptural placards will be provided. Please don’t come with any third party placards. Specially produced tracts will also be supplied".
Sky News also reports that the Rev Ian Paisley has called on the British Government to cancel the Holy Father’s state visit at this late date.Dr Paisley said of the Pope’s visit: “They are receiving him as a king. He’s not a king.”
Protest the Pope comment: Another fringe group gets in on the act of stepping into the media spotlight around the Pope’s visit. All have one thing in common, they are all militant and they are all marginal to mainstream life in the UK. The only reason why they are getting any attention is due to the media puffing up the controversy and some of the outrageous lies and claims being spread by Protest the Pope. They’re all starting to appear to be members of a grotesque, absurd circus
And here's a necessary context for all these malicious huffing and puffing - the kind of scale, in hard figures, that MSM hardly ever reports in order to make the anti-Pope agitation sound so much more widespread and mainstream than it really is - fringe elements whom the MSM are using as a vehicle to disseminate extreme views they probably share but cannot possibly express on their own lest they be classed with the lunatics...
Police say 'Protest the Pope' estimate
that their demonstration will attract 2,000
Sep., 9, 2010
The Metropolitan Police report that Protest the Pope organizers estimate that 2,000 protesters will march through London on 18th September.
Meredydd Hughes, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, also pointed out that the speed of the Popemobile – described as “fast walking pace” – makes it vulnerable to egg-throwing and other protests.
"We will have a proportional response to any protest. But once you start throwing eggs you are committing a criminal offence,” he said.
Protect the Pope comment: So, after months of being the favourites of the media at most 2,000 people will turn up to make their anti-Catholic demonstration.
[Remember all those condom fanatics who had such a great run in the media before the Pope's visit to Sydney in 2008? A few dozen of them actually showed up but who would have noticed them with hundreds of thousands of youth walking from Sydney center to the site of the papal vigil and Mass on the day of their 'big demonstration'?]
On Saturday 18th September the Holy Father will attend the following events in London at which the following numbers of people are expected:
- 3,000 school children at Big Assembly at St Mary’s, Twickenham
- Unknown number at Westminster Hall
- 2,000 people at Westminster Abbey
- 2,500 young people at Westminster Cathedral Plaza
- 80,000 people at Hyde Park Prayer vigil
So here are the figures again just to put the Protest the Pope demo into perspective:
- Protest the Pope: 2,000 people, possibly.
- Pope Benedict: 87,500, approximately.
[Not counting those who will be welcoming him along the known routes to and from these events.]
Also, Protest the Pope earlier abandoned plans for a demonstration in Scotland due to lack of interest.
Now, that's scale and context! But you won't see it in the MSM!.... BTW, I doubt if Dawkins himself will show up at any protest gathering, now that he knows for sure he can't 'arrest the Pope' because the police won't let him! Perhaps 'human rights lawyer' Geoffrey Robinson will show up, though, to sell some copies of his book to the most diehard members of his 'choir'. And get to do it all in front of a readymade worldwide TV audience tuning in for the Pope..
On a happier note, Cardinal O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has come up with a second innovation for this papal visit. After having thought up the St. Ninian's Day parade and historical reenactments on the day the Pope arrives in Edinburgh, he also commissioned a tartan for the Pope. (Though I can think of only two ways the Pope himself could make use of the tartan - as a lap blanket or Snuggies when he is relaxing on cold nights, I am sure many religious schools could use it for a uniform. The tartan has always been a favorite reliable for the skirts of girls' uniforms and for caps, vests and shorts for schoolboys...)
Custom Scottish plaid created
to celebrate papal visit
GLASGOW, United Kingdom, Sept 9, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- A traditional plaid Scottish design, or tartan, has been created to commemorate the Pope's visit to Great Britain this month. The North Carolina creator of the design said the interlocking pattern of stripes tells the story of the Catholic Church in Scotland while interweaving elements of next week's trip.
With just a week remaining before the Holy Father's arrival to the nation's two major cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Scottish Church announced the novelty of the first ever papal visit tartan on Thursday. Matthew Newsome, director of the Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin, North Carolina, drew it up especially for the Sept. 16 occasion.
"Thrilled" that his design was chosen to be woven by a pair of Scottish companies for the trip, Newsome said that every element of the multi-color traditional pattern has a meaning behind it.
Cardinal O'Brien shows off the Benedict tartan, with a bagpipe player clad in full tartan!
The tartan's "white line on blue field draws upon Scotland's national colors while the green reflects the lichens growing on the stones of Whithorn in Galloway," he said, explaining that it was there that the missionary St. Ninian arrived 1,600 years ago.
St. Ninian's feast day will be observed in a very special way this year as it coincides with the arrival of the Pope in Scotland.
Red lines also accompany the white lines, said Newsome, which is in remembrance of the colors of Cardinal John Henry Newman's crest, and thin yellow lines were also put alongside the white to reflect the colors of the Holy See.
He added, "(i)n terms of the weaving, each white line on the green contains exactly eight threads, one for each Catholic diocese in Scotland. There are 452 threads in the design from pivot to pivot, representing the number of Catholic parishes."
The design was presented by Cardinal Keith O'Brien and Newsome to members of Scottish parliament on Thursday afternoon. Every one of the 129 members received a tie or scarf with the design.
Cardinal O'Brien noted, “It’s a great honor to be able to hand over the first ever tartan created for a Papal Visit as a thank you to all the Holyrood parliamentarians who have been so overwhelmingly supportive of this visit, knowing it means so much to the Catholic community and many others in this country.
"I also intend to gift the tartan to the Holy Father only a week from today," he said, adding, "What could give him a greater Scottish welcome than a new tartan created in honor of this historic visit?”
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/09/2010 01:07]