Sacred mysteries: What the Pope's visit changed
Weighing the effect, a month on from Pope Benedict's visit
by Christopher Howse
23 Oct 2010
When the Pope visited Britain last month some said that everything had changed for good. That is not true in the sense of the nation being converted to the paths of righteousness. And there was also something which changed for the time being. That was the easy ride enjoyed by a small number of atheist zealots, the usual suspects, who had mocked him in the much the way that alternative comedians once mocked Mrs Thatcher.
What changed permanently is surely the reputation (more than just image) of Pope Benedict. However long he continues as Bishop of Rome, he will be known in Britain not as an isolated authoritarian hankering for lost glory, but as a thoughtful man, a little shy, never happier (except perhaps when listening to music, as at Westminster Abbey. or when saying his prayers) than in discussing how the Church and state might work for the common good.
A turning-point was the address to both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. It wasn't just that his audience applauded him after his speech as he walked through the historic building. This was remarkable enough, given the historic roots of a part of parliamentarianism in the rejection of popery.
But the friendly gesture was not the distinguishing note of the occasion – after all, the Queen herself, welcoming him to Scotland had spoken of being "united in conviction" with him about the freedom to worship being "at the core of our tolerant and democratic society".
No, the decisive moment at Westminster Hall was when the Pope denied for the Church the role of supplying "the objective norms governing right action", let alone proposing "concrete political solutions". The latter point should have been clear, since Catholics sit with conviction on both sides of the House of Commons. But it might have been thought that the Church ought to supply the moral underpinning.
Not so, the Pope insisted. The answer to the question "Where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?" was that it was to be supplied by reason, without the privilege of divine revelation.
Certainly, reason could be distorted, as the "totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century" showed. And that was why "the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilisation". This was a thousand miles from the exploded caricature of Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope, as a dogmatic rottweiler.
[A pity that Mr. Howse and other Pavlov-dog critics of Joseph Ratzinger, even in the media, obviously never bothered to check earlier into what he has been saying and writing for decades - notwithstanding that he had written about 120 books before he became Pope, most of them translated to English!]
There were, naturally, moments of entirely spiritual witness – not least when 80,000 people at Hyde Park fell silent as the Pope led them in unspoken prayer to Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament.
Another striking scene came when this old man invited a crowd of schoolchildren – and all the young people in the land – to set their ambitions upon becoming saints. "Once you enter into friendship with God," he told them, "everything in your life begins to change."
Pope Benedict did not just preach to the converted. After their meeting (by coincidence at the beginning of the Day of Atonement), the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, moved by the Pope's commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations, said: "It was an epiphany. Soul touched soul across the boundaries of faith."
Those words echoed the motto –
Cor ad cor loquitur – of the man the Pope had come to beatify, John Henry Newman. Now, after the beatification, previous objections to it seem petty.
Luckily, the Pope's speeches were not couched in the jargon-ridden half-Latin that once characterised English translations of encyclicals.
[Once again, it is obvious Howse had not read Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI at all before he came to the UK! A pastoral, almost conversational, tone characterizes his public discourses, and he manages this by using simple direct language - elegantly formulated, to be sure, but effortlessly so - that engages the listener, whatever his intellectual level, that never talks down but never dumbs down the message either.]
They are online at thepapalvisit.org and, with colour pictures and reflections by figures who met him, in
Benedict XVI and Blessed John Henry Newman, edited by Peter Jennings (CTS, £14.95).
What follows is quite a belated post - but still very relevant - from the Tablet that I missed seeing when it first came out and that I came across when I tracked down the Tablet story on the Ordinariate. It is a very beautiful, inspired and inspiring piece.
Building on the papal visit
by James Leachman
Oct. 2, 2010
Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain has been hailed as an outstanding success. But how can it become a starting point to help those making their first steps towards faith, or those tentatively wanting to return to the Church?
For the four days of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain it seemed at times as if the heart of the nation was beating with that of the Catholic Church.
The Pope spoke with his wisdom, humanity and obvious affection; the British responded with an unexpectedly warm welcome – and it was not just practising Catholics who reacted so warmly.
Now, in these days after the visit, there are enormous opportunities for the Churches in Britain to respond to the obvious spiritual thirst of our people.
Catholics, alienated by the child-abuse scandal, responded to the Pope’s frequent apologies and references to his shame and pain, and to his private meeting with victims. Non-practising Catholics took notice of his spiritual message and wondered what they had been missing.
Christians of other Churches showed great enthusiasm; they and members of other faiths welcomed his contribution to the debate on the place of religion in society.
Politicians and others in public life reacted positively to his address in the historic Westminster Hall. The cynical media were clearly wrong-footed by the fabulously organised roadshow for the nation.
I have spent time recently in Lincoln among Church of England and Catholic friends and family. After Evensong in the (Anglican) cath-edral one day, some of us were received by a delightful member of the cathedral community, many of whose Church of England friends had followed the papal visit on television and considered it an astounding success. Some who had stopped attending were considering a return to regular worship in the church that had nurtured their faith.
The Catholics I met were also united in their conviction that they had seen the Pope as he is for the first time, rather than through the distorting medium of a press that is often cynical and atheistic – and they had experienced a shift in their attitude towards him.
One of the central elements of Pope Benedict’s call was that all people of faith should have an active voice in society. Religious faith is not a private experience or hobby, and it must be active in promoting justice and truth.
It was clear from his joyful meeting with young people at Twickenham and outside Westminster Cathedral, and with the elderly in Vauxhall, south London, that both he and they were moved. They welcomed his call to follow Christ and become the saints of the twenty-first century.
The visit was also a powerful reminder through the pilgrims who turned out that the Church is “catholic” – that is, international, multicultural and multicoloured and that it includes people of all ages.
A further thread running through the papal liturgies was that beauty and the transcendent attract us and help us to respond to Christ’s call.
So how we can build on these events (which seemed more like a pilgrimage than a state visit)? How do we maintain a momentum over the coming months and years? What can our parish communities do in practice?
It seems clear that the Churches must work together in responding to the grace of the Papal visit – and each parish community will also have to develop its own plan of action.
Christians can work together to be advocates for those who are manipulated and instrumentalised by our society: the unborn, the young, the old, the disabled, the unemployed, the discriminated, migrants.
We must consider in our parishes how we can help young people to withstand the craving for the false values of alcohol, drugs, style, a consumerist sexuality and power promoted by ruthless advertising. This is the kind of Church the Pope has shown we can be in Britain.
There are two groups in particular we should focus on in the coming months: those inspired tentatively to consider becoming Christians and those who, as my Church of England friend pointed out, wish to enquire about returning to regular worship. They may find the journey daunting and be fearful.
So we might organise groups in our parishes to welcome back those who wish to return. This will require advertising in the parish and, perhaps, in the local press; and people will need to be reminded that personal encouragement is often most effective. We might make sure that people are aware of programmes such as Landings, a Paulist ministry for returning Catholics.
This is a moment for great sensitivity. Many Catholics who feel excluded from the Eucharist still come to Mass regularly, and non-Catholics also come to Mass with their spouses or children. We might make a deliberate, but gentle effort to invite them to talk to a priest by including a note in the bulletin or by putting enquiry cards in the church. Alternatively, the celebrant might include in the announcements a reminder that he is always available to speak privately after Mass or during the week.
The Pope’s Prayer Vigil in Hyde Park was extraordinarily powerful and the introduction of prayer vigils, or a time of adoration of the Eucharist, in parishes could help people reflect on their faith, or make the faith their own, either for the first time or once again. Such devotional practices can help build up a sense of Christian and Catholic identity leading to a sense of community.
Let me give some concrete examples of what we can offer. I know a woman who would sit at the back of the church during Mass, looking longingly at what Catholics do. When she had gained enough confidence, she began to light a candle before the statue of Our Lady. She would sit and think about her family difficulties and would share them with Mary — and she found that her burdens seemed lighter.
Then there was a refugee who had fled a violent husband, leaving behind her children. She would visit a church and sit and think before the crucifix of her own suffering and how she could make sense of it. In both these cases, someone befriended them in the church; both of these women became Catholic.
Ousama used to pray in a mosque that had once been a church. On one wall, not yet obliterated by whitewash, a face of Christ was discernible. He came to England as an economic migrant and searched for that human face again. A religious sister gave him a Bible and he would read the accounts of Jesus – and discovered that it was among the Christians he met that he could find that face.
None of these rituals — lighting a candle, sitting before a crucifix or icon, reading a Bible — involved an official liturgy, but the Christian community helped enquirers to reflect and pray. Their experiences and the personal encounters they had helped them to respond to God in their own way.
Our parishes and dioceses could use all these and other pious practices and popular devotions to help many of those touched by the visit of Pope Benedict to come into the Christian community or to return to it once more.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/10/2010 04:35]