He came, he saw, he conquered.
The Pope's visit to Britain last
weekend was vastly more successful than almost anyone anticipated, and
if he didn't exactly conquer, he certainly persuaded many people that
there is a lot more to Joseph Ratzinger than the caricature of him many
might lead us to believe.
In the end, all those critics who did
their best to try and ensure his visit would be an ignominious failure
were reduced to petty and impotent fury by the huge and good-humoured
crowds that turned out to greet the Pope.
Some 200,000 filled the
Mall in London on Saturday night as the Pope made his way to Hyde Park.
Two days before in Edinburgh, 125,000 people had lined the streets for
him.
If the numbers at the two open-air Masses were down on 1982
when John Paul II visited, that was mainly due to security and financial
considerations.
Depending on whose estimate you believe, between
500,000 and 750,000 people in this secular country with only a small
minority of Catholics, turned out for him.
The Pope's visit was,
in fact, the first bright spot for the Church in this part of the world
in a long time -- a real morale booster.
The hours of live
coverage on BBC and Sky gave Irish viewers a chance to see the visit for
themselves, to see the Pope directly, rather than through the lens of
the media, which is just as well, considering the begrudging tone of the
coverage by RTE news. It was as though RTE was reporting a different
event from the one people could see for themselves merely by switching
channels.
The keynote speech of the Pope's visit was delivered on
Friday evening in Westminster Hall before the leaders of civil and
political life.
What he had to say to them was as pertinent to
Ireland as to the UK. He spoke, for example, of the "inadequacy of
pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex, social and ethical problems
(that) has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global
financial crisis".
Most of our politicians positively pride
themselves on their 'pragmatism', which in their case is simply a fancy
word for following the crowd. Most of our politicians never offer
leadership on anything at all because they lack a true over-arching
vision of the common good.
The pragmatic approach is what led us
straight over the financial precipice and is currently leading us over a
social precipice because of a blind, ignorant, but strangely
self-righteous, adoption of increasingly liberal social policies.
The
Pope also spoke of the marginalisation of religion that was taking
place. That's happening here as well, with the likes of Dermot Ahern
advising politicians not to let religion "cloud" their judgment, and
John Gormley instructing the bishops to "stick to the spiritual needs of
their flock", rather than "intrude" on "matters of State", as though
the future of Irish society is simply a matter for the State.
Benedict
spoke of a growing threat to freedom of religion and freedom of
conscience and, in Scotland the previous day, of "aggressive forms of
secularism" and the "dictatorship of relativism".
Bizarrely, there
are people who doubt that aggressive secularism even exists, who deny
that the rights of religious believers are under increasing assault in
Western societies. But if
Richard Dawkins and company are not examples
of aggressive secularism then what is?
And if the forced closure
of Catholic adoption agencies in the UK and elsewhere because they want
children to be adopted by married, opposite-sex couples isn't an example
of a direct attack on the rights of religious organisations, then
nothing is.
In some parts of the US, Christian nurses have been
fired for not performing abortions. In Sweden, you must be willing to
perform an abortion if you work in a public hospital.
Pharmacists are
increasingly being forced to dispense the morning-after-pill (an
abortifacient), regardless of their convictions.
In Britain, a
nurse was suspended from work for offering to pray for a patient.
Christians have been investigated by police for "hate crimes" after
handing out literature deemed "offensive" to minorities. In Ireland, a
Catholic infertility doctor was recently investigated on a professional
misconduct charge because he would only treat married couples.
Also,
the Government and opposition parties refused to add a conscience
clause to the Civil Partnership Bill, a true example of the
"dictatorship of relativism" which insists that no distinction can be
made between one "lifestyle choice" and another, and that those who make
such distinctions must be penalised.
The most obvious impact of
the Pope's visit to Britain was its success as a public spectacle.
But
he also had a message, and his message was that Christians have to start
fighting back against attempts to drive them from public life and
deprive them of their legitimate rights.
The visit will have been a
real success only if Christians begin to take up that fight.
If not,
then one day they will wake up and discover that they have been reduced
to second-class citizenship.
SIC: II/IE