Pope's Visit September 2010
I have been quite surprised at the number of emails that I have had objecting to the Pope’s visit. My correspondents complain about the Pope’s views on divorce; sexuality; abortion and contraception. I have replied saying that we live in a free country where -at least some of us- still cherish freedom of expression, and that it would be absurd for us to exclude the Pope just because we disagreed with him, if indeed we do.
The principal reason for the Pope’s visit is to beatify Cardinal Newman, one of the founders of the Oxford Movement which did so much to enrich the life, thought and worship of both the Anglican and Catholic churches. He was a man of enormous courage who embraced Catholicism at a time when to do so meant exclusion from university or any of the professions.
In addition to the beatification and his ‘pastoral’ ministry to the Roman Catholic community in Britain, the Pope is here as a ‘head of state’ on a state visit. He will address both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. Representing, as he does, over a billion Catholics throughout the world there are bound to be matters of mutual interest to discuss with our own Government. One example would undoubtedly be the Middle East peace process, and another would be our international development effort. The Catholic Church is one of the largest international development agencies in the world –in fact second only to the United Nations. So, of course there is a joint agenda to discuss given that we share a common commitment to international development, education and the relief of poverty, even if we may have different emphases or even disagree about some aspects of policy.
How extraordinarily small minded that some people would want to exclude the Pope just because they disagree with him. I rather think the objection runs deeper: I believe it is part of that secular agenda that derides Christianity and wants to banish it from the public space.
I do hope the Pope gets the message loud and clear that he is most welcome here. |
