THE VISIT by Pope Benedict XVI to England and Scotland last week
could have been a disaster.
Indeed, more than a few involved were
worried: about the crowds who would come to see him and the prospect of
large-scale demonstrations, and about the often gratuitously
antagonistic commentary in much of the British press in the days before
he arrived.
Instead, it bordered on the triumphant. Decent crowds,
if not those matching the 1982 visit of Pope John Paul II, turned out
to see him. Even larger numbers gathered as his popemobile passed by in
Edinburgh, London and Birmingham, though a significant percentage were
not locals, but tourists, or eastern European immigrants.
And he
received wall-to-wall coverage from Sky News and BBC News, but that, it
must be said, had as much to do with 24-hour news channels’ obsession
with “events”, with images of a VIP’s motorcade leaving one location
only to arrive at another minutes later, with relatively meaningless
commentary covering the two.
That protesters attacked the pope on
so many fronts – from clerical child sex abuse to the church’s refusal
to consider an end to priests’ celibacy; from the Vatican stance on the
ordination of women priests to the issues of faith schools and the
pope’s attitudes to homosexuality and condoms – probably ensured none of
the messages hit home.
In truth, Pope Benedict should have placed
himself on difficult ground with his opening remarks to journalists
travelling with him from Rome. He expressed his “shock” at discovering
the existence of clerical child abuse, leaving the impression he was
somehow on the margins of the crisis rather than the Vatican’s
disciplinarian who is blamed for doing so much to cover it up.
The
Catholic Church, he said, had not been “sufficiently vigilant and not
sufficiently quick and decisive to take the necessary measures”. If so,
then the pope himself is the one who has not been “sufficiently quick
and decisive”, and, so far, there has been no note of personal
culpability in anything he has said on the controversy that now grips
the church worldwide.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by
Priests, the group that represents many of the victims of priests in the
United States, rejected the pope’s declarations, saying: “It’s
disingenuous to say church officials have been slow and insufficiently
vigilant in dealing with clergy sex crimes and cover-ups. On the
contrary, they’ve been prompt and vigilant, but in concealing, not
preventing, these horrors.”
The issue has not scarred UK public
opinion in quite the same way as in Ireland and other European
countries, partly because the church was less dominant in times past,
but also because the Catholic Church’s response in England and Wales,
while defective in many areas, has been better than elsewhere.
Nevertheless,
three-quarters of the UK population believe the Catholic Church has not
done enough to deal with the legacy of pain – with just over half of
declared Catholics polled sharing the same opinion. It is noteworthy
that Catholic opinion is not even stronger than this.
Certainly,
leading politicians were not prepared to criticise him directly on the
issue, preferring, as did prime minister David Cameron, to concentrate
on the pope’s message that religion has a role to play in wider society
and that every individual has a wider social obligation to others.
Undoubtedly,
the visit has done something to settle relations between the Catholic
and Anglican churches, which were upset last year by the pope’s clear
attempt to poach conservative Anglican vicars who opposed their church’s
ordination of women and the demands from many that these women should
be able to become bishops.
That issue is not likely to disappear.
The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who was deeply
annoyed by the Vatican’s action last year, recently drily pointed out
that the pope and he shared common interests: a love of cats and of
collecting Anglican priests.
The question now is: what will be the
legacy of the pope’s visit? The Catholic Church is on the same
wavelength as Mr Cameron when he talks of “the big society” and a
greater role for voluntary groups, including churches, in the supply of
social services. Indeed, the church warmly welcomes the language coming
from No 10.
However, squalls lie ahead.
The new government has
already said the first sections of the equality Act that passed into law
before Labour left office would come into force in October –
legislation which the pope described earlier this year as an unjust
limitation “on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance
with their beliefs”.
The Catholic Church fears the legislation
would prevent Catholic schools from insisting that employees are fellow-
religious.
Legal opinion seems split on the impact of the legislation,
since there is no express prohibition of harassment on grounds of sexual
orientation or religious belief for consumers, but those with a
grievance could bring discrimination claims.
What of the truly secular notion to live and let live?
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