You have challenged the whole country to sit up and think, said David Cameron of the visit.
BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron once memorably described his faith as “a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes”.
Following the papal visit to Britain last month it is clear that, regardless of the depth of his personal faith, this prime minister sees faith communities as important allies in his efforts to fix “Broken Britain”.
As he bade farewell to Pope Benedict XVI with the words, “you have challenged the whole country to sit up and think”, Cameron had effectively named the primary legacy of this papal visit.
For a public with only a caricatured image of the pope and an understanding of religious belief influenced by the simplistic narrative of Dawkins, Pope Benedict offered moments of serious and sophisticated reflection on the role of faith in the public sphere.
It all dovetailed neatly with Cameron’s policy flagship, the Big Society. Like Catholic social teaching, it stresses the importance of the twin pillars of subsidiarity and solidarity.
Pope Benedict went beyond the points of agreement though. He voiced concerns about the increasing marginalisation of Christianity and the intolerance shown towards traditional values.
At Westminster Hall, he told parliamentarians that the engagement of faith and reason is a two-way process. Faith needs reason to avoid distortions such as sectarianism and fundamentalism.
But reason also needs faith – not to supply “concrete political solutions” which lie outside the “competence of religion” but instead to help “purify” reason, which can itself be misused to create social evils, such as slavery or the totalitarian regimes of the last century.
Pope Benedict also expressed concerns about the relegation of faith to the purely private sphere and a disregard for personal conscience. When this happens, he said, freedom itself is threatened.
He was hardly thinking of the recent debate on civil partnerships here, or Minister Dermot Ahern’s claim that he leaves his religion outside the door when making decisions, but the lessons were obvious.
According to Pope Benedict if one is not motivated by faith, one is always motivated by something else, with no guarantee that it is any better.
Despite incessantly negative coverage from large sections of the media before the visit, there was surprise that so many were prepared to listen to the pope and cheer him on. In the days beforehand many were expecting a damp squib. This may be an example of what political scientist, Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, calls the “spiral of silence”.
Her theory suggests that people tend to keep quiet when they feel they are in a minority as they fear that voicing an unpopular opinion could result in social or professional isolation.
So, on this occasion, Catholics in Britain, bombarded with negative media coverage, tended to stay quiet before the visit. However, once the pope arrived and some leadership emerged they turned out in big numbers.
If Pope Benedict has indeed challenged Britain to sit up and think, then perhaps a discussion here in Ireland on the role the media might be playing in muting people of faith would be useful.
Like his predecessor, Pope Benedict sought to encourage young people in particular.
Speaking in Hyde Park he recalled the Tyburn martyrs and noted that today’s Catholics won’t be hung, drawn and quartered for the faith; but they can expect to be dismissed and parodied.
As his Alitalia jet disappeared into the evening sky over the British midlands, Benedict probably knew his visit had not turned any great cultural tide.
Instead, he was leaving behind a reinvigorated Catholic community, smaller in number than in the past, but ready to demonstrate that their church, despite its many failings, has a vital contribution to make to society.
This visit was not about reaping a harvest.
It was about sowing the seeds.
Dr Andrew O’Connell is communications director for the Presentation Brothers and worked in the Catholic Church’s media office in London during the papal visit
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