HOLY FATHER'S STATE VISIT TO BRITAIN SEPTEMBER 2010

I've looked into:







I love the YES HE CAN - I'm planning to get one for next years obligitory visit to Cape Cod - I think it will generate some conversations with the staunchly Democrat side of the family... hehehe!

EWTN to Air Pope's Historic U.K. Visit Live

Exclusive Interviews, Expert Commentary Available

IRONDALE, Ala., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- (EWTN) – EWTN Global Catholic Network will provide live coverage of every public event during Pope Benedict XVI's historic visit to England and Scotland Sept. 16-19, numerous original productions on the life and works of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who will be beatified by the Pope during his visit, and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and interviews.

Coverage will be seen and heard on all nine EWTN Television Networks worldwide, and can be heard in English, Spanish, French and German; on EWTN Radio Network, and at www.ewtn.com through live streaming video. (Find EWTN Television at www.ewtn.com/channelfinder and EWTN Radio at www.ewtn.com/radio/amfm.htm or on Sirius Satellite Channel 160.)

Special live coverage will be provided by EWTN News Anchor Raymond Arroyo, who has covered more papal events than anyone in the industry and who obtained the only English language interview in existence today with the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

"To my mind, this visit to the U.K. is to Pope Benedict XVI's papacy what Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland was to his," said "World Over" Host Raymond Arroyo, who will anchor EWTN's coverage. "Not enough attention is being paid to the historicity of this seismic moment."

EWTN's coverage of these events will include exclusive interviews with Deacon John "Jack" Sullivan, who prayed to Newman for healing after watching a series on the saint on EWTN and whose resulting miracle is responsible for Newman's beatification; Cormack Murphy O'Connor, former Archbishop of Westminster, who worked tirelessly behind-the-scenes to make this papal trip possible; Lord David Alton, a member of Parliament, who will discuss the government's view of the trip and what Catholics can expect; Westminster's current Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams, and many others!

You'll also travel to the Birmingham Oratory and the rooms in which Newman lived and worked; Westminster Hall, where St. Thomas More was condemned to death; the Guild Chapel and much more.

EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 30th year, is available in 160 million television households in 140 countries and territories. With its direct broadcast satellite television and radio services, AM & FM radio networks, worldwide short-wave radio station, Internet website www.ewtn.com and publishing arm, EWTN is the largest religious media network in the world.

Looking ahead to the Pope, pilgrims and prayers

By Joe Wilson
BBC Radio Lancashire
August 17, 2010

Many of Lancashire's Roman Catholics don't know which way to turn this week!

Are they to head north to Scotland or south to Birmingham when the Pope visits England and Scotland in next month?

They will also be factoring in the cost of on site food, souvenirs and such like which may not come at what might be termed Christian prices.

Balance that with the spiritual need to see and hear mass said by the man they see as a descendant of St. Peter, spiritually infallible and the earthly leader of their faith.

For Roman Catholics this is a landmark visit and almost certainly the only chance they will get to see this 83-year-old Pope on British soil. Indeed, this is only the second visit to Britain by a Pope in living memory. It should be a glorious occasion and an ideal affirmation of their faith.

Downside

There is also a downside. The visit follows much-publicised child abuse scandals and in particular, what many see as the faltering response of the Pope and the wider church to those allegations. These have left many non-believers immensely sceptical of the church.

Others, including the Lancashire Secular Humanists, are set to protest about the cost of the Pope's visit and who is going to pay for it. Ian Abbot, their chairperson, told us: "The Pope should not be afforded a state visit because he is the head of a state whose policies many would find unacceptable."

Ian cited Catholic teaching on gay issues, HIV and what he saw as a lack of sexual equality in their teaching.

So, over the next few weeks I'm sure we will be reporting on the Pope, pilgrims and prayers. But there will also be mention of protests. How extensive they will be remains to be seen.

Bishop Vincent Malone from the Archdiocese of Liverpool told BBC Radio Lancashire about the anticipation of Catholics in the area. Father Andrew Allman agreed with him but also suggested some media might use the visit to be unnecessarily negative about Catholicism.

This week our programme began the countdown to his visit by asking how is the Roman Catholic church gearing up for the Pope's arrival.

Touch down

Let's start with the basics; Pope Benedict XVI will touch down in Edinburgh on Thursday 16 September.

He will be received at Holyrood House by Her Majesty the Queen and other members of the Royal Family. He will then go on to celebrate open air mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow before flying on to London.

After various functions and events, on his final day Sunday 19 September, the pontiff will travel north to Birmingham for the open air beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park.

This is the first official papal visit. When Pope John Paul II toured the country in 1982, though a massive occasion, it was not an official state visit and was purely pastoral occasion.

The forthcoming arrival of Pope Benedict is deemed to be the first state visit of a Pope.

There is some discreet debate about this, in a briefing I attended it was acknowledged that technically a state visit requires a state banquet and His Holiness doesn't do state banquets.

The whole four-day visit could cost as much as £19m. The final figures are still unclear, but it is agreed the costs are rising and the taxpayer could be asked to contribute up to £12m with the Roman Catholic Church stumping up £7m.

Catholic congregations throughout the country have been asked to contribute. Those figures do not include the policing costs for the visit.

Pope John Paul II's visit to Britain in 1982

The feel of the visit seems to be very different from the previous occasion that a pontiff toured these islands. Then there seemed to be far less cynical scrutiny and there seemed to be a far more relaxed climate, even thought he country was at war and the Northern Irish difficulties were rarely from our thoughts.

Back in 1982, for Pope John Paul's visit there were fewer health and safety regulations, the ticketing policy was "just turn up" and the security was seen to be tight but not to the almost stranglehold proportions we will see in September.

I was a fledging apprentice BBC worker when Pope John Paul II came to say mass at Heaton Park in Prestwich on 31 May 1982.

We were bussed into the park the night before and expected to stay awake until the crowds had dispersed. I lived about seven miles from the venue and remember getting a notice through my letterbox telling me I was in a parking exclusion zone for the visit and should keep my car on the drive.

It was the time of the Falklands conflict and the Irish troubles so there was a very real possibility of car bomb attacks.

There were also fears for the pontiff's own health. The Pope was visiting us exactly a year after he had been shot in St. Peter's Square in Rome. Hence, he travelled in the Leyland-built pope mobile. I remember our Programme Editor referring to these difficulties in his briefing to us on the night before the coverage: "Should the unthinkable happen again," we were told, "be calm and don't panic."

Memorable

That said, I don't recall security being obviously tight beyond those vehicle limitations. I'm sure Greater Manchester Police, led in those days by the almost legendary Chief Constable James Anderton, had all bases covered but their plans didn't get in the way of a marvellous and memorable occasion.

The organisers expected around half a million and got about half of that so the proposed tour of the park by the Pope was altered to suit. The BBC were left with several reporters, including BBC Radio Lancashire's Mike West, stationed at some outpost with no crowds for company and the prospect of seeing only a distant far away image of the Pope.

It was one of those days you never forget.

As the Pope celebrated mass before the crowds, the BBC allowed us a few minutes to leave our temporary Portacabin studio to climb the hill amongst the throng and to get closer to the Pope so that we could say we had seen him.

We were ushered nearer by the many Manchester-based Polish people who had offered their services to guard this most important visit by one of their own. I got to within a 100 yards of the Pope and remember seeing him sitting on his high throne-like chair amidst the crowd as a homily was being said.

Lampooning

In those days John Paul II was seen as something of a pop star Pope. He was the first pontiff in modern times to fly the word to better connect with his people.

The Roman Catholic Church looked to him for modernisation and guidance through the emerging secular thinking that so often seemed to be at odds with their beliefs. Most notably they awaited his words on sexual and ethical issues such as abortion and contraception.

In time, Pope John Paul II would do little more than re-enforce existing church thinking on these matters, but there were many in 1982 who felt this Pope would take a more liberated view. They saw this man as being the first of a new breed of Pope, one who understood them better. He was modern, well liked in the press many warmed to him more after his affectionate lampooning from Spitting Image.

Now, 28 years later, we have a different kind of Pope coming to our country in different times. Privately, the Roman Catholic Church says the crowds may be bigger, though they concede they are guessing.

Many think interest will be high amongst the followers, but they feel the current pontiff doesn't have the wider non-Catholic box office appeal of Pope John Paul II, and so non-believers may be left unimpressed.

Hot wax

However, the Pope is the world wide leader of the 4.2 million Catholics in England and Wales. In Scotland, it was recently reported that there are now more Catholics than Protestants with 215,000 regularly going to church so no matter how many apathetic views are expressed there is still bound to be massive interest in his visit.

Each of our Lancashire Roman Catholic parishes have only been allocated around 60 tickets each. In the case of the Lancaster Diocese that is 30 for Glasgow and 30 for Birmingham.

To be eligible for one of these tickets you must be a parishioner at a local church. You also have to agree to travel on a parish coach and the restrictions don't stop there.

Everyone who goes has to register their name and address. All names will be checked on the way. This week we received the "what you can and can't bring" list. Banners and flags are ok, as are torches, folding chairs, kneelers and a camera.

Don't even think about canopies, BBQs, musical instruments, whistles, standing platforms, alcohol or candles. I suppose there are those who might raise an eye at the "no candles in the congregation at the mass" ruling, but they may alter their opinion at the first sign of hot wax dripping down on to their hands.

Cynical

Perhaps it's the cynical journalist in me, but I did wonder about the acceptance of flags and banners which at best hinder views and at worst can have somebody's eye out! Then again, they do look good on the telly and I wonder how much of this entire visit is also about ensuring this rare opportunity is used to put a best possible light on the church.

Undoubtedly, this visit has massive spiritual value to Christians and other faith communities. We shouldn't underplay that, but I also sense a renewed wind blowing in from the Roman Catholic authorities who want to use the event to give what they would see as a more accurate picture of their faith than has recently been portrayed.

We are still four weeks out from the Pope's arrival on that Thursday night. We at the BBC see this as one of the major events of the year and there will be extensive coverage both of the visit and the spiritual and news implications of what promises to be a fascinating three days.

maryjos, 15/08/2010 19.16:

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Taken this morning with my Vatican City flag. Julia, Father Bob and....well, you can see who it is!!!!!! This pic is for the local paper. I thought I'd lost a bit of weight. Must be something wrong with my camera!

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Beautiful photo!!!
Mary, you seem in good shape!


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The official schedule has appeared today on the Papal Visit website. They also have a different photo as a banner every day. Altogether, it's been an excellent site....with more still to come, I hope.


Events Timeline
This is the full detailed schedule for the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK. Background detail on the venues can be found in our Itinerary section.
Thursday, 16 September
08:10 Departure from Ciampino Airport Rome
10:30 Arrival at Edinburgh International Airport Edinburgh
11:00 State Welcome and Audience with HM Queen Elizabeth II, Palace of Holyrood House
11:40 State Reception in the grounds of the Palace of Holyrood House
Address: HM The Queen
Address: The Holy Father
13:00 Private Lunch with the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Archbishop's House
17:15 Pope Benedict XVI presides at the celebration of Mass, Bellahouston Park
Homily: The Holy Father Glasgow
20:00 Departure from Glasgow Airport for London Heathrow
21:25 Arrival at London Heathrow Airport London

Friday, 17 September
08:00 Private Celebration of Mass in the Chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature London
10:00 Celebration of Catholic Education, St Mary's University College, Twickenham
Prayer with Representatives of Religious Congregations in St Mary's Chapel
Greeting: The Holy Father
Gathering with Schoolchildren and Students, Sports Arena, including the inauguration of the John Paul II Institute for Sport
Address: The Holy Father
11:30 Meeting with Religious Leaders and People of Faith, Waldegrave Drawing Room, St Mary's University College, Twickenham.
Speech: The Holy Father
16:00 Fraternal Visit to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace
Speech: Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
Speech: The Holy Father
17:10 Address to Civil Society, Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster
Speech: The Holy Father
18:15 Celebration of Evening Prayer, Westminster Abbey
Speech: The Holy Father
Speech: Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Saturday, 18 September
09:00 Courtesy Call from the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Archbishop's House, Westminster London
09:20 Courtesy Call from the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, Archbishop's House, Westminster
09:30 Courtesy Call from the Acting Leader of HM Opposition, the Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP, Archbishop's House, Westminster
10:00 Mass in the Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Westminster
Pope Benedict will greet 2,500 young people gathered in the Piazza to welcome him
Pope Benedict will greet the people of Wales
Greeting and Homily: The Holy Father
17:00 Visit to St Peter's Residence for Older People, Vauxhall
Speech: The Holy Father
18:15 Prayer Vigil on the Eve of the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, Hyde Park
Speech: The Holy Father

Sunday, 19 September
08:00 Farewell to the Apostolic Nunciature, Wimbledon London
08:45 Departure by Helicopter for Birmingham, Wimbledon Park
09:30 Arrival by Helicopter in Birmingham Birmingham
10:00 Celebration of Mass with the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, Cofton Park, Birmingham
Homily and Angelus: The Holy Father
13:10 Private Visit to the Oratory of St Philip Neri, Edgbaston, Birmingham
13:45 Lunch with the Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales and the Papal Entourage, Oscott College
16:45 Meeting with the Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales, Seminary Chapel, Oscott College
Speech: Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien
Speech: Archbishop Vincent Nichols
Speech: The Holy Father
18:15 Departure Ceremony, Birmingham International Airport
Speech: The Holy Father
18:45 Departure by air from Birmingham International Airport
22:30 Arrival at Ciampino Airport Rome

Time Zones
Rome: +2 GMT
UK: +1 GMT

Pope Benedict 'likely' to meet abuse victims

Church source involved in drawing up pontiff's itinerary for September visit to UK would be 'surprised if it didn't happen', given gaps in schedule

Tom Kington in Rome
The Guardian,
Thursday 19 August 2010

Pope Benedict is likely to meet some of the people abused by priests when he visits Britain in September, according to a Catholic church source.

Involved in drawing up the itinerary for the 16-19 September visit, the source said he would be "surprised if it didn't happen" given the gaps left in Benedict's schedule, announced on Wednesday.

At 5pm on 18 September the pope will visit the St Peter's Residence retirement home in Lambeth, south London, to give a speech that the source said "will focus on end-of-life issues" – suggesting he will stress his opposition to euthanasia.

His previous commitment before visiting the home is mass at Westminster Cathedral at 10am – leaving him time that day for a possible meeting with victims of abuse by priests.

The pope met eight abuse victims during a visit to Malta in April, and he was reportedly reduced to tears. The meeting was part of the Vatican's response to the wave of abuse scandals that have damaged the Church.

The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has previously said "careful consideration" was being given to organising meetings with victims during the pope's visit to Britain.

A British government source involved in the trip denied that the gaps in the pope's schedule were put there to give him plenty of resting time between appearances because of his age. "The pope may be 83, but this is a gruelling schedule by any standards," he said.

The 83-year-old pontiff is due to deliver 10 speeches and hold four masses during his visits to Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Birmingham, as well as meeting the Queen, David Cameron (for 20 minutes), and Nick Clegg (who will get 10).

Afternoon catnaps will keep the Pope fresh for his UK visit

By Daily Mail Reporter
19th August 2010

As every tourist knows, travelling can be exhausting.

So it's a good job that a series of catnaps have been scheduled into Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to England and Scotland.

The Pontiff's packed itinerary, disclosed yesterday by the Vatican, will be punctuated every afternoon by breaks of several hours to allow the 83-year-old to catch up on his sleep.

Pope Benedict XVI, 83, has been given several hours every day to rest and recover
But the Bavarian-born Pope will be cramming a lot into his waking hours - including private audiences with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman.

An insider at the Vatican said the gaps in the schedule were deliberately included to give the Pope a chance to rest and recover his strength.

The source said: 'We are talking about a very gruelling and packed schedule which lasts from Thursday until the Sunday and there are several events, as well as a lot of travelling. The Holy Father will arrive in Scotland and spend the day there before travelling to London where he will spend the next two days and the final day will be in Birmingham.

'Let's not forget that he is 83 years old and like any elderly person he does get tired in the afternoon and he also gets up very early - he is up at 6am so a few hours' rest is to be expected.'

Pope Benedict's tour begins on September 16, when he flies from Rome to Edinburgh with Alitalia Airlines and will meet Queen Elizabeth at Holyrood Palace.

Before returning to Italy, he will take in Glasgow, London and Birmingham, including a visit to a church-run home for the elderly and a meeting with college students.

He has also been allocated a 20-minute appointment with the Prime Minister in London on the Saturday morning - but will spend only ten minutes with the deputy leader.

Susan Boyle will sing for Pope during UK visit

Glasgow, United Kingdom, Aug 19, 2010 / 12:45 am (CNA).- The surprise music sensation Susan Boyle will sing for Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the U.K., a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland has confirmed. Boyle will be joined by music star Michelle McManus, who is already scheduled to sing before the Papal Mass in Glasgow.

Responding to an inquiry from CNA, Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office (SCMO), said on Wednesday, “Susan will sing.”

He added that organizers hope to release more details at the beginning of next week.

Boyle, a middle-aged Scottish woman who sang in her Catholic parish’s choir for decades, became a sensation after her appearance on a British talent show. While the show’s audience reacted with hostility to her plain-looking appearance at first, they cheered with deep appreciation after her high-caliber rendition of the song “I Dreamed a Dream.”

The singer’s first album has sold millions of copies.

Other high-profile music performers will also participate in the papal visit.

Television and pop music star Michelle McManus has been scheduled to perform before the Sept. 16 Papal Mass in Glasgow during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit.

McManus will perform “Home,” a song composed by her 22-year-old cousin Michael Brady. She will also sing the popular song “From a Distance,” the SCMO reports.

The singer became famous after winning ITV’s Pop Idol show in 2003. She is now a popular television presenter on the STV nightly show “The Hour.”

McManus has dedicated part of her time to caring for handicapped children on pilgrimage to the French Marian shrine of Lourdes.

A crowd of up to 100,000 people is expected at Bellahouston Park for the Mass and the event will have a potential broadcast audience of one billion people.

“I am truly honored to have been asked to perform at Bellahouston Park on the 16th September in celebration of the Pope’s visit to Scotland,” McManus commented. “What an amazing event to have staged here in our own country and as a very proud Scot and someone of faith I am delighted to be involved.”

Peter Kearney of the SCMO said organizers were “absolutely delighted” that the singer will perform at the Papal Mass. Her performance of a song written by her cousin will be “a very special moment” on what looks to be “a very special and historic day for Scotland.”

Papal Masses in Britain will use some new English texts

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
August 19, 2010

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- People attending Pope Benedict XVI's Masses in Scotland and England in September will get a chance to hear and sing a few of the newly translated Mass texts, according to the pope's chief liturgist.

Msgr. Guido Marini, papal master of liturgical ceremonies, told Catholic News Service Aug. 19 that the prayers sung in English at the papal Masses in Great Britain will use the translations from the new Order of the Mass approved by the Vatican in 2008.

"The songs from the Order of the Mass -- for example the Gloria -- will be from the new translation, which was approved a while ago," he said.

The words for the rest of the Mass prayers "will be from the text currently in use," he said, because when the papal Masses were being planned, the Vatican had not yet granted final approval to the bishops of Scotland, England and Wales for the complete English translation of the Roman Missal.

Although the new translation of the Order of the Mass, which contains the main prayers used at Mass, was approved by the Vatican two years ago, bishops' conferences in English-speaking countries decided to wait to introduce the prayers until the entire Roman Missal was translated and approved.

The new translation of the Mass was designed to follow more closely the text in the original Latin.

In the Gloria, which Msgr. Marini said would be sung during the papal trip, the new English text begins: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory, Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father."

The text currently in use begins: "Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory."

POPE IN UK EXPECTED TO SHOW BEAUTY OF CATHOLICISM

Spokesman Reflects on Highlights of September Trip

ROME, AUG. 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A Vatican spokesman says Benedict XVI's trip to the United Kingdom next month will be an opportunity to effectively present a secularized society with the positive contribution and beauty of the Christian faith and the Catholic Church.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, offered this prediction in an interview with Vatican Radio about the Sept. 16-19 trip.

The spokesman said that the Pope's first-day meeting with the queen is "awaited with great intensity and emotion," as is the Scotland leg of the trip.

"I would like to remind, moreover, that the day the Pope will be in Scotland is the feast of St. Ninian, who is the patron, the evangelizer of Scotland," Father Lombardi noted. "Hence it is a very important day for the Scots."

Then there will be "the Pope's great address in Westminster Hall, the meeting with society, with the world of culture, with all the most active and authoritative components of English society," he continued. "This will certainly be a moment watched with great attention."

Unity-seekers

Father Lombardi added that the ecumenical dimension of the trip should not be discounted. That element includes a meeting between the Pope and the leader of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop of Canterbury.

"The ecumenical celebration certainly has great significance," Father Lombardi contended. "We also know that it is a delicate moment for Anglicanism, because of the internal debates. And it is a delicate moment also for relations with the Catholic Church, because the internal debates are reflected also in the relationship between the Anglicans and the Catholics."

Newman connection

Father Lombardi classified the closing vigil in Hyde Park and the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman as the "spiritual heart of this visit."

He mentioned the bond that unites the Holy Father to Cardinal Newman, a poet and Anglican pastor, subsequently received in the Catholic Church and made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII.

This bond, explained the Vatican spokesman, is visible in the "profound synthesis between faith and reason" and "in living Christian witness in today's world, in the modern world, giving all the reasons of the Christian faith for those who ask for them, giving reason for our hope in today's world."

In regard to the question of the so-called tickets to participate in some of the events, as for example the vigil in Hyde Park, Father Lombardi clarified that the costs and organization of a papal visit fall to the inviting nation.

"It isn't the Pope who organizes a trip for himself in England," he said. "Hence, the first thing: the Vatican has not established any of this."

The spokesman said that the need to ask for a contribution to participate in the three main public events stems from the fact that people will use organized means of transportation; hence the ecclesial authorities have had to issue "a pass, a specific passport to each of the faithful that participates" and "a small service kit -- also pastoral and logistical."

State visit

In reference to the novelty of this visit, compared to that of Pope John Paul II 30 years ago, Father Lombardi stressed that much has changed, particularly elements such as "the approach of the visit itself, which has the aspect of a state visit with an official invitation from the queen and the government, whereas that of John Paul II was more specifically pastoral."

"I would say that what is expected, what can be desired, truly hoped for from this visit is the fact of making it understood, of presenting the service of the Christian faith and the service of the Catholic Church for a very developed but also a very secularized society, such as that of the United Kingdom," he said. "A reality, where perhaps many persons wonder about the value of Christian witness and Catholic witness in society.

"Hence, to make it understood that this is a gift for society, a richness that is offered with its service of spiritual inspiration but also of commitment in the educational field, in the field of health, of charity is something very important.

"We hope that this trip will also be a manifestation of the beauty, of the positiveness of the Holy Father's service in society, much more so in times in which we also have had moments of controversy."

I think I'm gonna ask the hubby for EWTN this weekend. I've been a fan of Papa for over 5 years now, and I've only seen him on TV during those Christmas Masses that they show on NBC around midnight my time. So that makes a total of 4 times. (I missed last Christmas)
I think he'll agree. It's only a couple dollars extra on the cable bill every month. I don't watch too much tv (except for Fox news channel) so I think I'll be able to get it.

Comic carry-on of the papal visit is no joke

Despite chaotic organisation, the papal trip to Britain could surprise us all, says Damian Thompson.

By Damian Thompson
Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 4:55PM BST 20 Aug 2010

The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have invited me to the beatification of John Henry Newman by Pope Benedict XVI at Cofton Park, Birmingham, on September 19. It’s very gracious of them, given that I’ve written several articles revealing what an almighty mess the Bishops’ Conference has made of organising the papal visit. Then again, perhaps it’s a cunning snub, since the invitation arrived just too late for me to RSVP before the deadline for acceptance.

Never mind. I suspect I won’t have too much difficulty attending the historic event. Neither should you, judging by the latest reports from the set of Carry On Beatifying.

Having been forced to change venue from Coventry to Birmingham as a result of their own bungling, members of the “papal visit team” are now wondering how on earth they are going to fill Cofton Park. It’s a much smaller venue than Coventry Airport: it can hold only 65,000 people as opposed to 200,000. But with tickets priced at £25, and the prospect of queuing for hours at the crack of dawn, “pilgrims” (as the Church has decided to call attendees) are proving thin on the ground. “Without a frantic reallocation of tickets and cutting of corners, the park is going to be half empty,” says my source.

Don’t get me wrong: I want the Pope’s visit to be a thrilling success, but my mobile phone keeps ringing with reports of fresh ineptitude on the part of the Church. And I’m going to pass them on, because the only thing Catholic bureaucrats respond to is public embarrassment.

The invite to the beatification is roughly the size and shape of a wedding invitation. Which is appropriate, in some ways, because the arrangements for the Catholic parts of Pope Benedict’s visit have reached that stage where the catering bill has soared wildly over budget, the marquee won’t fit into the garden and there are last-minute tantrums over the choice of hymns.

I promise not to push this analogy too far, but I think of the Catholic organisers as the bride’s family: well-meaning, but quarrelsome and touchy – and hopeless when it comes to budgets. (“Oh, damn, no one mentioned VAT. And what’s this about insurance?”) The Government, meanwhile, is the rather grand family of the groom. Originally, these posh relations only had to organise the secular hospitality. But – much to everyone’s embarrassment – the bride’s family is so helpless and hard up that they have quietly fished out their chequebook to pay for some of the religious celebrations, too.

It would take the skills of the late Gerald Thomas, director of the Carry On films, to convey the mixture of feuding and slapstick behind the doors of the Bishops’ Conference headquarters in Eccleston Square, Pimlico. In addition to getting their sums disastrously wrong, portly monsignors and their right-on advisers were originally planning to force the poor Pope to listen to just the sort of music he hates – folk-style “antiphons” for which the correct liturgical dress is a tie-dyed poncho worn over polyester flares.

Fortunately, professional musicians employed by the Church got wind of these plans and conveyed them to Mgr Guido Marini, the traditionalist Papal Master of Ceremonies. According to my source, trendy caterwauling was banned from the big services in Birmingham and Glasgow “on the direct orders of the Vatican”. Meanwhile, Westminster Cathedral is rumoured to have stopped Eccleston Square from interfering in its own papal Mass. That leaves only the young people’s prayer vigil in Hyde Park for the old liberals to mess up – an opportunity they’ve eagerly grasped, judging by their choice of drippy anthems by “with-it” Catholic composers old enough to be the youngsters’ grandparents. Plus, as a ecumenical treat for the Holy Father, Shine Jesus Shine by Graham Kendrick.

If you’re thinking that someone in the papal visit team really doesn’t like Benedict XVI, you may be right: Eccleston Square was for many years the headquarters of the anti-Ratzinger faction in the Church. In contrast, Archbishop Vincent Nichols is fully committed to the visit’s success – but he wasn’t able to stop certain prize bumblers appointing themselves to key positions. (He won’t forget their mistakes in a hurry, however.)

What makes the situation alarming as well as embarrassing is that sections of the media are preparing to mark the Pope’s arrival with some sort of Catholic sex scandal. There are two press operations for the papal visit, one based in Eccleston Square and one run by the head of Opus Dei in this country. Inevitably, they are already tripping over each other. I dread to think what will happen when the scandal breaks.

But perhaps I’m being too gloomy. The plot to derail the papal visit with sex abuse headlines is so breathtakingly cynical that the British public may decide to ignore it. Yes, the Bishops’ Conference staff proved incapable of organising the open-air events – but at least, in the process, Rome finally discovered just how useless they are. Like over-elaborate wedding plans saved from disaster by sheer good luck, the arrangements for the beatification may magically come together on the big day. And I bet the Holy Father will look lovely in white.

Choirs prepare for papal Masses

By MARK GREAVES
Catholic Herald
Friday, 20 August 2010

Choirs across England, Wales and Scotland are rehearsing the new setting of the Mass composed for the papal visit by James MacMillan.

The setting will be performed at the two big papal events at Cofton Park, Birmingham, and Bellahouston Park in Glasgow and will follow the new English translation of the Mass.

Sections of the setting are already available online [http://www.forthinpraise.co.uk/papal.php] so that papal pilgrims can practise singing it in the run-up to the Pope’s visit.

Crowds will be aided by a choir of 2,000 at Cofton Park and 800 at Bellahouston and there will be “detailed and focused” rehearsal before the Masses start.

The choirs will be accompanied by brass and timpani on the day but, according to Mr MacMillan, any parish can perform the setting as long as it has an organ.

Mr MacMillan said he tried to make the basic melody simple so that congregations would pick it up easily. “It’s not a lot of time to bed the music down in dioceses and parishes,” he said.

He also said he hoped it would be “appropriate to the text and the way the drama of the Mass unfolds”.

Mr MacMillan said: “There has to be a sense of awe at the words of ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’, just before the consecration. And the Gloria is a huge raising of hearts to heaven, a great joyous outburst from the very early days of the Church, that again has to have a very different flavour.”

Mr MacMillan admitted he was apprehensive about the setting being sung “in the middle of a field”.

“Singing out of a field is tricky – it’s just a very strange experience standing in the middle of the field and being expected to sing. And Catholics are reluctant singers at the best of times.

“I just hope that people rise to the challenge. At first encounter it might feel strange, but if they have the text and music with them I hope they will really join in on the day,” Mr MacMillan said.

Bood - so glad you will soon join the army of EWTN fans. They have an hour of children's programming which your little one will come to enchoy when he's a bit older! all in all, a worthwhile investment.

My hubby has agreed to getting EWTN! I'm so excited!!

United Kingdom issues three stamps on the Pope and Cardinal Newman

Rome Reports
Date: 2010-08-28

It's been 28 years since the last visit of a pope to the United Kingdom. So Benedict's trip has generated much excitement in the British Isles, so much so that the Postal Service of the Isle of Man has issued three stamps to commemorate the Pope's visit to the UK.

The image is a photograph of Pope Benedict XVI during a general audience in June 2009. The two stamps in honor of Cardinal Newman feature two portraits of the future blessed.

The stamps are likely to be a collector's item for a historic occasion.

I don't know if these gypsies were motivated by Benedict's criticism of France's recent highly publicized expulsion of gypsies or if there is some other motivation for their interest in him but their effort to see him in England is quite a surprise.


3,000 gypsies coming to Birmingham for Pope's visit

by Edward Chadwick
Birmingham Mail
Aug 28 2010

COUNCIL chiefs say they expect 3,000 travellers to come to Birmingham during the next few weeks for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit.

They are frantically drawing up plans for huge temporary camps to house gypsy pilgrims’ caravans on disused industrial land where they can erect toilet and water facilities.

And they say they have selected a number of potential sites for the travellers to use for free for up to four weeks. They said the aim was to keep the gypsies off playing fields and parkland.

But they admitted it would be the taxpayer who would pick up the bill to fund the works.

City parks chief Coun Martin Mullaney said: “If we charge them then unfortunately they will be back on the parks, which is something we want to avoid.

“I have met with the travellers and they say they will do their best to keep land tidy but because of the weather they cause damage to the land.

“It makes sense to give them somewhere to stay because we don’t want the bureaucracy of moving them away each time they move.

“I have been told that there could be up to 3,000 travellers and we have to make sure we are ready for that.

“There are no tickets left for Cofton Park but the people I have spoken to say that they will be happy just to hear the Pope’s voice. There will be a lot of economic benefits for the city of the Papal visit and also some costs, including this one.”

The travellers sparked anger among locals living near Sarehole Mill in Hall Green – said to be the inspiration behind for JRR Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings saga – when they forced their way on to the historic site earlier this week.

After being served with an eviction notice, they moved to nearby playing fields off Cole Bank Road on Thursday and were yesterday given seven days to leave.

Just four caravans were on the sites yesterday morning but they were joined by another eight families who said they had been kicked off land in Shirley.

One woman from Leeds said: “If we can stay on here for a few weeks in peace and quiet it would be lovely.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“If I could just hear the Pope’s voice, I would feel blessed.”

Coun Mullaney said that the temporary travellers’ sites would be set up in the next week, but refused to speculate where they might be.

He said he was asking the Irish press to circulate the message that all tickets for the mass and beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park on Sunday September 19 have been allocated.

POPE TO BRAVE PERSECUTION IN UK

Hostility Intensifies With Trip 18 Days Away

By Father John Flynn, LC

ROME, AUG. 29, 2010 (Zenit.org).- As the date for Benedict XVI’s mid-September trip to Scotland and England draws closer, the anti-religious hostility is becoming more intense.

Peter Tatchell, a well-known critic of the Catholic Church, penned an opinion article published Aug. 13 in the Independent newspaper. “Most Catholics oppose many of his teachings,” he claimed in regard to the Pope.

In his role as a spokesperson for the Protest the Pope Campaign, Tatchell then went on with a long laundry-list of Church teachings, which he described as harsh and extreme.

Tatchell has also been chosen by the television station Channel 4 to front a 60-minute program on the Pope, which will be broadcast around the time of the papal visit, the Telegraph newspaper reported on June 4.

It won't be the only television special critical of the Catholic Church. The BBC is working on an hour-long documentary on the clerical abuse scandals, the Guardian newspaper reported Aug. 3.

Along with the unsurprising opposition to the visit from the Orange Order of Ireland and Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, the British government also got caught up in an embarrassing instance of anti-Catholic prejudice.

The Foreign Office had to issue an official apology after a government paper on the visit became public, the Sunday Times reported on April 25. A document that was part of a briefing packet sent to government officials suggested that the Pope should sack “dodgy bishops," apologize for the Spanish Armada, and open an abortion clinic.

Nervous

The attacks have not gone unanswered. Although not official representatives of the Church, a group of Catholic speakers was set up under the name of Catholic Voices. Under the leadership of Jack Valero, who is a director of Opus Dei in the United Kingdom, the team of speakers are offering themselves to defend the Church’s teachings.

Support is also coming from secular sources. Self-declared atheist Padraig Reidy criticized the extreme nature of the anti-Catholic rhetoric in an article published by the Observer newspaper on Aug. 22.

On July 28, Kevin Rooney, also an atheist, writing for the online site Spiked, described the attacks on the Church as “illiberal, censorious and ignorant.”

Rooney, who grew up as a socialist republican in Belfast, said that not only do the critics oppose the teachings of the Church, but they also want to prevent it from speaking out at all. Moreover, he noted, any accusations made against the Church are immediately taken as being true, without any need for proof.

“As with the right to free speech, it seems the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty does not extend to the Catholic Church,” he observed.

The problems faced by the Church are far from being limited to verbal hostility. A raft of laws on so-called hate crimes and anti-discrimination create a continual series of legal challenges for Christians in the United Kingdom.

According to a booklet just published on this topic by Jon Gower Davies, there are more than 35 Acts of Parliament, 52 Statutory Instruments, 13 Codes of Practice, three Codes of Guidance, and 16 European Commission Directives that bear on discrimination.

In "A New Inquisition: religious persecution in Britain today," (Civitas) he outlined a number of recent cases where Christians have suffered from these laws.

Adoption

The latest example of this was the loss by Leeds-based Catholic Care in a High Court appeal on the issue of whether they could continue to deny placing adopted children with same-sex couples.

The origin of the case was a 2007 sexual orientation regulation, which outlawed adoption agencies from such "discrimination."

According to an article published Aug. 19 by the Telegraph newspaper, Catholic Care is the last remaining Catholic adoption agency to resist the regulations. Since the law came into effect in January 2009, the other 11 Catholic adoption agencies have had to either shut down or sever their ties with the Church.

There have been numerous other cases in past months where Christians have faced legal battles.

-- A foster carer won her struggle to continue fostering children, after she had been banned by Gateshead Council. The ban was due to the fact that a girl aged 16 that she was caring for decided to convert from Islam to Christianity. The carer, who remained anonymous in order to protect the identity of the girl, had fostered more than 45 other children. Although the matter was righted in the end, the woman suffered considerable financial losses due to the ban. (The Christian Institute, July 11)

-- A Christian preacher was arrested for publicly saying that homosexuality is a sin. Dale McAlpine was locked up in a cell for seven hours and subsequently charged with "causing harassment, alarm or distress” (The Telegraph, May 2). After widespread protests the charges were dropped. (The Christian Post, May 18)

-- A Christian relationship counselor was denied the opportunity to go to the Court of Appeal regarding his dismissal by Relate Avon after he admitted he could not advise same-sex couples because of his beliefs. Gary McFarlane lost his claim of unfair dismissal at an employment tribunal and at a subsequent tribunal appeals hearing. (Christian Today, April 29)

-- Shirley Chaplin, a Christian nurse, lost a claim for discrimination after she was moved to desk duties following her refusal to remove a crucifix on a necklace. Even though John Hollow, the chairman of the employment tribunal panel, admitted that Chaplin had worn the crucifix for 30 years as a nurse, he said that wearing it was not a requirement of the Christian faith. The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, mentioned the case in his Easter sermon. He said there was a ''strange mixture of contempt and fear'' toward Christianity. (The Telegraph, April 6)

Earlier this year the situation reached the point where the former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, together with six other Anglican bishops, wrote a letter to the Sunday Telegraph complaining that Christians in Britain are being persecuted and treated with disrespect.

As an article on the letter in the March 28 edition of the Sunday Telegraph explained, the bishops argued that, while believers of other religions are shown sensitive treatment, Christians are punished.

"There have been numerous dismissals of practicing Christians from employment for reasons that are unacceptable in a civilized country," the letter declaimed.

Right to be heard

The notoriety of restrictions on Christians reached the point where the Pope publicly intervened. During his speech on Feb. 1 to the bishops of England and Wales, present in Rome for their five-yearly visit, he commented on the topic.

Benedict XVI observed that their country was noted for its equality of opportunity to all members of society. He then urged the bishops to stand up when legislation infringed on the freedom of religious communities.

"In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended," the Pope said.

"Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others -- on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth," he added.

Given the Pope's concern over this matter, and the continuing cases of Christian persecution, we may well expect him to speak out on it during his visit next month.

Papal visit: BBC sets out plan for blanket coverage

Live TV for Pope Benedict XVI's arrival, beatification of Cardinal Newman and Westminster Abbey service, plus much more

Tara Conlan
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 31 August 2010

The BBC has today unveiled more details of its extensive plans for coverage of the forthcoming UK visit by Pope Benedict XVI, with more than 10 hours of live broadcasting on BBC1 and BBC2.

In addition to about 12-and-a-half hours of live programming on the two main TV channels, Radio 4, Radio 5 Live and other BBC TV, radio and online services will be contributing to the coverage.

Huw Edwards will be the main television anchor for the pope's arrival, broadcast live on BBC1 from Edinburgh on Thursday, 16 September, when the pope will also meet the Queen.

Edwards will give commentary on the Westminster Abbey service the following day on BBC2, which will also be on Radio 4 Longwave, covered by Ed Stourton.

On Saturday 18 September, Edwards will present coverage of a mass at Westminster Cathedral, where he will be joined by Monsignor Mark Langham.

Sunday coverage will include the beatification mass of Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park in Birmingham, which will air on BBC2. The programme will be fronted by Edwards, joined by Stourton and Langham.

On the same day, Radio 4's Sunday Programme and a special edition of Sunday Worship will also be broadcast live before the main ceremony.

In addition to the blanket live coverage during the papal visit, there will be "some current affairs programming looking at the different aspects of the Catholic Church".

There are also a wide range of papal-themed documentaries. BBC2 is airing two documentaries, Benedict: Trials of a Pope and Newman: Saint or Sinner? fronted by Ann Widdecombe, plus highlights of the trip in The Pope's Visit.

BBC 4 is screening Vatican – The Hidden World of God's Servants and Radio 4 is airing The Pope's British Divisions, which will feature Mark Dowd examining the impact of the sex abuse crisis in Britain's Catholic community, plus highlights of the beatification of Cardinal Newman.

Radio 2 will air a special hour-long edition of Sunday Half Hour from a vigil in Hyde Park, while Radio 5 Live will have "extensive" coverage led by Shelagh Fogarty and including live broadcasts of the Pope's arrival in Edinburgh on 16 September and of his first mass the same day during 5 Live Drive.

The following day Fogarty will present 5 Live Breakfast from Twickenham, where Pope Benedict will be staying, with "live coverage of his official engagements throughout the day", plus broadcast of the final mass of the visit.

The BBC said it "will also be covering other events during the papal visit on the BBC News Channel".

Aaqil Ahmed, BBC commissioning editor for television and head of religion and ethics, said: "This is the first papal visit to Britain for 28 years and the first ever state visit and is of great significance not only to the millions of Catholics in this country but to the countless others who will be watching in the UK and around the globe. I am delighted that the BBC is bringing together a team of presenters and specialists who can provide insight into such an historic occasion."

It is understood that the BBC's director general, Mark Thompson, has been invited to some of the events but it is not yet clear if he is attending as a BBC spokesman said that his "plans haven't been finalised yet".

Catholics in Britain

The fruits of adversity

Bolstered by immigration and challenged by the economic downturn, the church is playing an ever more active role

The Economist
Sep 2nd 2010

TO SEE two faces of Catholic Britain, you need only walk a short way from Parliament. The train and bus stations of Victoria, where many migrants arrive to seek their fortunes, are even closer.

First there is the squat red brick of Westminster cathedral, home of England’s Catholic hierarchy; its Byzantine mosaics, glinting in candlelight, are a splendid setting for one of the country’s finest choirs. Round the corner things are more down-to-earth at a hostel and day-centre for the homeless (the largest in London, it is claimed) set up by a religious order, the Daughters of Charity. Among the duties of the priests and nuns who work at The Passage is liaison with police, hospitals—and undertakers, in the fairly common event that homeless people, often young, succumb to addiction or despair.

Perhaps the distance between the two should not be overstated. For a body that works at society’s sharp end, the hostel has many friends in high places, including banks. Staff at Goldman Sachs help in the kitchen; employees at Barclays assist the homeless with tips on how to open a bank account. And for all its splendour, the cathedral is a newish building for a newly revived institution, one that remembers being weak. It was only in 1850 that Catholics felt able, for the first since the monarchy broke with Rome in the 1530s, to have bishops in England. And 20 years before that, office-holders had to be Anglicans.

Such discrimination may be a fading memory, but then churches have a different way of measuring time. Among the cathedral’s treasures are the remains of martyrs who died for the Roman faith at the hands of a Protestant state. (Protestants were killed by Catholics too, of course, but earlier.) Even in its finest bastions, Catholic England does not feel a place grown arrogant on a diet of unfettered power.

These days Catholic Britons—who will be welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to their shores this month—have little obvious reason to call themselves embattled. In an historic reversal, adherents of their faith have been named to one top job after another. Chris Patten, a Conservative politician (and co-organiser of the papal visit) is chancellor of Oxford University, an institution that Catholics avoided attending (until the pope allowed them, in 1896) even after Anglicans admitted them. The previous speaker of the House of Commons was Michael Martin, whose roots are in Hibernian, working-class Glasgow. And the head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is of the Papist persuasion. Almost the only thing a Catholic (or even the spouse of a Catholic) cannot be, by British law, is king or queen.

But the senior Catholics who are hosting the pope do not talk or act as if they had laurels to rest on. Instead, they point out that their co-religionists work hard for whatever prominence they now enjoy as the biggest body of churchgoing Christians. Whereas the established Church of England is still trying to reconcile inherited privilege with a shrunken flock, their Catholic compatriots have had their muscles toned by some hard battles.

Nor does the success of individual Catholics mean that life is easy for conscientious believers, insists Charles Moore, a columnist and Catholic convert. Given the liberal, secular consensus that prevails in Britain, it would be almost impossible for a strict Catholic—one who accepted the church’s teaching on abortion, homosexuality and stem-cell research—to become prime minister, he thinks. “The old Anglican prejudice against Catholics has been replaced by the secular sort.”

It is true that Catholic politicians face hard questioning: Ruth Kelly, a former education secretary, was criticised for her Roman leanings. Tony Blair converted to Catholicism only after he had stepped down as prime minister. John Battle, a Catholic Labour politician, says his biggest act of religiously inspired defiance was not a bio-ethical issue but opposing the Iraq war in 2003. But he thinks his co-religionists have won respect for their willingness to work with other faiths in easing social problems, including the plight of migrants.

As the pope will see, the latest challenge facing his followers in Britain is also a huge opportunity—an influx of Catholic workers from eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Under the impact of immigration, Catholic churches are flourishing—and trying hard to adapt to new languages and styles—in greater London and other southern places such as Reading and Southampton. Further north, some old Catholic areas—like Lancashire and Liverpool—have seen church attendance plunge, but there are pockets where particular groups of migrants have settled. In bits of Lancashire there are lots of Indian Christians from the state of Kerala.

Most of the migrants who throng London’s churches are doing better than the occupants of The Passage, but sometimes not much. “The Ground of Justice”, a church-backed survey of migrant worshippers published in 2007, found that in some London parishes three-quarters of the congregation had no legal right to be in Britain (and were thus vulnerable to illegally low pay and blackmail). For many, hearing mass in Portuguese or Tagalog was a moment of calm in a grinding existence. In a few cases, new worshippers were instructed to “integrate” with a local flock that was weak and collapsing.

As an example of Catholicism at work in a grittily multicultural area, take the Jesuit church in Stamford Hill in north London, where Hasidic Jews have been joined by Hispanic and Slavic newcomers. Gimcrack shops offer cash-remittance services to distant lands. And on Sundays, mass is said first in English, then in Spanish, then in Polish. If migrants are not satisfied by that, they have choices: what meets their eye as they leave mass is a smart new Pentecostal church, with worship in Portuguese as well as English. For anyone who thinks churches need competition to stay on their toes, this is a healthy sight.

Nor are hard-pressed migrants the only element in Catholic London’s rich diversity. Another contingent is formed by young, successful men and women whose style and theology are conservative: believers in “salvation by tweed alone”, as one clerical wag dubs them. Some have emerged from monastic private schools; others are one or two generations away from roots in Ireland or eastern Europe. Their views are often well to the right of an older group of churchgoers, who sign up readily to green and third-world causes.

Nor should their influence be underestimated. Francis Davis, a Catholic scholar, recalls an earlier cohort of liberal worshippers who reacted with dismay to the Vatican’s rigid line on contraception, for example, but stayed in the church. These days such people tend to lapse altogether, leaving more conservative types in the pews, albeit in small numbers.

That leaves wide open the question of how the church will look when today’s young fogeys reach middle age. Filipinos and Poles are often traditional in their devotional practices; they are comfortable with statues and saints. Will local conservatism mix with the imported variety to forge a new style of Catholicism, girding for fresh battles with secularism and longing for a reversal of the Reformation?

UK’s Archbishop Vincent Nichols welcomes “historic” papal visit

Reuters
SEP 3, 2010 07:38 EDT

Pope Benedict will make his first visit to Britain as head of the Roman Catholic Church on September 16-19. This will also be the first official papal visit to the country. Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, talks with Reuters about the trip in the context of the Church’s child-abuse scandal, tensions with the Anglican Church and planned protests.

Here’s our news story on the interview — Archbishop of Westminster says pope not fishing for Anglicans — and below are excerpts from the transcript.

Q: The pope is due to arrive in Scotland shortly. What keeps you awake at night about the visit?

A: Actually I feel at the moment quite relaxed and looking forward to this visit very much, and I think this is true of a lot of people. I think we are well prepared, I think most issues have been settled and agreed, and I get increasingly a sense within our society that this is a significant moment. A visit that is profoundly historical in its nature, and I believe that when the pope comes he will be warmly received and attentively listened to. We do have great character of hospitality towards guests and he is a guest of her Majesty the Queen and I think society will respond accordingly.

Q: There are rumours that the British tabloids are storing up a sex abuse scandal to coincide with the papal visit. How much of a concern is that for you?

A: Well, I think the pattern that has emerged over papal visits to different countries is that in the period immediately prior there is intense criticism of the church in the media. There’s no doubt that issues to do with the Catholic Church are being given more attention at this present time. And the pattern in Australia, in New York, in other places is that the period immediately prior to a papal visit is very cloudy and a few thunderstorms and a bit unpleasant. But what seems to happen is that when the pope arrives, as it were, the sun comes out and the rains are forgotten and people actually concentrate and welcome the pope and are prepared to listen to what he has to say. And I think that is particularly true in a special way with Pope Benedict. Pope John Paul II was a great presence on the stage. Pope Benedict is a much more gentle and refined person, and I think he benefits greatly from the television close-ups because he wants to engage in a dialogue, in conversation. He wants to put forward his views in a measured, eloquent rational way. And I think those qualities will be much appreciated here and people will engage with him.

Q: Do you think the visit will enhance the Church’s status in Britain?

A: I think the status of the Church in society is not my prime occupation. I think it will help the Catholic Church to be understood in our society. So for example, a very major part of this visit is to illustrate and strengthen relationships between on the one hand the Holy See, the work of the Catholic Church worldwide and the United Kingdom government. That is why this is a state visit. And there are clear areas in which I think people will be surprised to learn that there is serious cooperation between the government and the Holy See in the provision of primary health care, for example, in the provision of primary education, in the fight against poverty, in the care of the environment. I mean these are major political arenas, policy areas in which the UK government wants to engage more fully with the Catholic Church, and ministers of state are already talking very positively about those things.

So I hope that aspect of what the Catholic Church is and what it stands for will be more clearly understood. So for example, I don’t think many people know that the first ambassador appointed by the UK monarch to the Holy See was appointed in 1476. And in fact, the UK embassy to the Holy See is the oldest overseas embassy in the diplomatic history of this country. Now there was a big gap and then those contacts were only established again in 1914. But this visit helps us to look at our deeper history a bit more clearly. And I hope that will be understood as well.

Q: British ministers and Prime Ministers issued invites to the pope to come – so was it a surprise when its organisation was so badly handled?

A: The discussions that we have had since January/February have not always been easy. And I think the fact that it was clear a general election was coming up and that a government was coming to the end of its time didn’t help. But since the election, since a new government has been in place, and especially since the appointment of Lord Patten, then our work with the government particularly through the Foreign Office and Cabinet Office has been very good indeed. And even though we might say at this point we got started a bit late, the work has been really of a very high standard that is why with two weeks to go I really feel quite relaxed. Things are in place, there is good cooperation with local authorities … and central government and the Church. We are pulling together very well. So while it was difficult to get going, once we have got going it has been very good.

Q: We are told the pope is aware of the planned protests and media coverage, will it affect him?

A: I don’t think they will affect him deeply. No. Because I think he is a man who intelligently studies the world, and he knows the ebb and flow of opinion, and he knows the rootedness of the Catholic Church and of the Christian faith. And I think he is also a man of quite remarkable peace. When I was in the Vatican in January for our five-yearly visit of bishops, one thing that struck me and some of my fellow bishops too, is that the people accompanying the pope seem to smile most of the time. And it is almost as if a certain peacefulness radiates from him. One of my fellow archbishops said here is a man who is at peace with himself, and at peace with his faith, and at peace with his theology. Now that doesn’t mean to say he is complacent, but he’s as it were quietly, deeply rooted and willing to face any challenge or any problem, and to attack it, consider it, intelligently and rationally and with perspectives of faith very clearly worked out in his heart and in his mind.

Q: How big an impact do you think the child-abuse scandal will have on the Church and the pope and Britain?

A: Over the last 15-20 years in this country we have had to face issues of abuse of children by priests and the mishandling of those things and we have had to deal with that. We have had to look at it directly, and not pretend that it is anything other than horrific, try and learn about the effect that abuse has on youngsters and how profoundly it affects them, try and understand how best to respond to the needs of those who have been abused, which is not always easy for the Church because it is precisely their relationship with the Church that is one of those things that has [been] very severely damaged. But I think over those 15 years we have learnt quite a lot, I am not saying we haven’t got much more to learn, but I also think on the stage of the Church as a whole, it is Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope Benedict who has actually led the understanding and the reforms that are needed, and probably still needed, in order to tackle this problem in a way that is both thorough and fair.

And I think one of the most interesting things to me is in this country we have had two independent panels investigating how we react and respond to these things. Now both of them put to us the challenge of being an example of good practice. And slowly what we hope is that what we learn in the Catholic Church can be of service wider in society because incidents of abuse of children occur tragically throughout society. That is not something which in anyway minimises or excuses what has been dreadful in the Catholic Church, but it does mean that we are slowly coming into a position of being able to cooperate with public authorities over the general care of children and the general response to abuse.

Q: Why do you think your procedures have not been adopted by other countries.

A: Some countries do similar things and I think we do learn quite a lot from other churches. For over 6 or 7 years now there has been an annual meeting of bishops and those responsible for the protection of youngsters and vulnerable adults across the English-speaking Catholic world. So in the English-speaking scene we have been exchanging experiences quite a lot over the past 6-7 years. I think what is difficult though is that the different cultural and legal frameworks in which the Church operates make a profound difference. So here for example we have full and open cooperation with the police and the social services, in other countries that might not be possible.

There might not be the same level of trust, with reason, between a body like the Church and public bodies. The legal systems will be different in each country. Here, what we do fits an English legal system. I don’t know enough about legal systems in Africa, or in the Philippines or in big Asian countries. I doubt what we have learnt is immediately applicable there. So there are attempts to exchange experience, I think they could be approved but there are also differences that have to be taken into account.

Q: Are you suggesting that might be why some Churches have not passed files to the police.

A: I do not know about other circumstances. Here we do always share information with the police, and I have only heard that in some situations it might be the police who are involved in the offences as well, and there are patterns of mutual protection that go profoundly into the world of sexual abuse. And it is a fact, and it is a difficult fact to face, that the sexual abuse of children is the most hidden crime of all, and it takes great integrity and sometimes courage to surface these things and to bring them properly into the courts of justice.

Q: Do you think cases around the world will impact on the Church in Britain, despite the work it has done?

A: The Church is a big family… and has to pull together, and we have to try and understand the different circumstances that the branches of this vast family operate in. Certainly we carry each other’s problems. That is part of being a family, and if scandals in other parts of the countries have their impact here we have to learn to bear that and work with it. And I think most Catholics certainly understand that, and they understand the good efforts that are being made. I think in this country most Catholics have great esteem and affection for their priests.

Q: Do you think there may be tensions with the Church of England during this trip, especially with the planned symbolic events such as the beatification of the leading Anglican convert Cardinal John Henry Newman, visiting the Queen at Holyrood, the palace of Mary Queen of Scots, and speaking in Westminster Hall where the Catholic martyr Thomas More was condemned to death?

A: I think we have to distinguish between, if you like, the historical and cultural reverberations of some of those moments, which are as you mention are quite symbolic, quite iconic almost, on the one hand and on the other hand the present relationships between the churches. I think it is very fascinating, and who knows what resonances these images will set, but among them as well as Holyrood, the figure of Thomas More in Westminster Hall, we also need to put in first place the prayer of the archbishop of Canterbury and the pope at the tomb of Edward the Confessor because together they reach back to a common heritage and to the deep roots of who we are and who we are together. So that is an important perspective that needs to be brought to bear on the way we read our history since then.

So we have to be able to read the events of conflict between the churches in the light of those shared profound roots symbolised by Edward the Confessor. The question of our appreciation of history is terribly important and actually a real concern of Pope Benedict because he wants to say ‘without deep roots, plants wither’, and his kind of appeal to us and to Europe in general is not to forget who we are through the length of our history and the depth of our roots. Because when a people forget who they are, forget what their origin, their shape, their deep-rooted culture is, they are kind of left open to all sorts of influences. And I would hope that this visit will help people to be perhaps less apologetic about their Christian past and about their Christian identity, and to be less apologetic about being a Catholic and to actually say ‘well, no’ to live this faith puts me in a deeper long line that has shaped this nation, shaped such goodness right round the globe and is an important resource for the future.

So that is on the general, historic, cultural setting. Now in particular, to do with our relationship with the Church of England. There is a very important moment when Pope Benedict goes to Lambeth Palace to meet personally with the archbishop of Canterbury. That obviously is reciprocal because the archbishop of Canterbury has been to Rome to talk privately with the pope. But that will be an important moment because there are delicate, difficult issues between our two churches at the moment, which start, we need to remember, by the fact that groups of Anglicans, maybe people on the edge of the Anglican Communion, have persistently asked the pope for a response to their request for special provisions to be made for them to come into full communion with the Catholic Church. The initiative has been with members of the Anglican Communion and the pope’s Ordinariate is a response to those requests.

Sometimes people want to say ‘oh, this is the initiative of the pope who is going fishing for Anglicans’. That is not true. He is responding to requests that he has received, and those requests we have to handle sensitively on both sides. I think it is quite remarkable actually that Pope Benedict has a sense of the variety of ways in which it is possible to be a Catholic. I think he is more comfortable with a plurality of expressions of Catholicism in different rites, traditions than many of us are.

In the Ordinariate he is offering a way of being a Catholic which retains some elements of an Anglican patrimony which are consistent with Catholic faith. Now that’s not always easy for the Catholic community to come to terms with and understand as well as for the Anglican community. We have work to do, but we will do it together and that meeting of Pope Benedict and the archbishop of Canterbury will symbolise the way we will tackle these things together.

Q: But with the background of the Ordinariate and the way it was handled, do you expect the meeting to be tense?

A: It’s certainly a very real issue between us but I believe…that such is the strength and now the habitual nature of the relationship between bishops of the Roman Catholic Church and bishops of the Church of England in the UK…that we will deal with these things. It will not break that relationship, it will give us a sensitive issue to deal with. And we have a regular pattern of meetings together. We will not be having harsh words with each other.

Q: Any idea when or how many might convert?

A: No I don’t. I think this is still something that is being explored particularly on the side of the Church of England and certainly on our side. But please, it is important to remember that this Ordinariate, and this response of the Holy See is not just to do with England. In fact the larger, stronger requests came from America and to some extent Australia. So this is something that goes around the world but is also finding a place, we don’t know the extent of that, in this country as well.

Q: Will there be any fallout from the pope’s comment on the previous government’s equality legislation.

A: The pope’s comments on equality legislation were about one line long. And I think what he was doing was saying two things. One was an appeal to what we call natural law. Now there is nothing Catholic about natural law. It is simply an attempt to understand human nature and to see what are the patterns that emerge out of the way that we find ourselves to be. So that was a perfectly reasoned voice and a contribution to a debate.

The other thing I think he was saying, and I think this is important to keep in mind, and it would certainly be a view that I would reflect here in Britain at this point, I do not think we have the balance of equality legislation right. That’s not surprising. The unfolding of human rights legislation has been speedy and it has been concentrated in a comparatively short time. I don’t think we’ve got the balance of those rights correct yet. To some extent the pattern has been to develop them from the point of view of minorities which is perfectly understandable and perfectly proper. But majorities have rights too, and I’m not sure that we’ve got that balance correct yet. So for example, that a human rights court would say it is offensive to a minority that a crucifix should stand in a town school seems to minimize the rights and expectations of the majority. So I think equality legislation has a long way to go. I think the pope is perfectly entitled to make a reasoned contribution to that debate.

Q: Is the pope to meet aabuse victims during his trip to England and Scotland?

What is perfectly clear is that over the last four or five visits that the pope has made, don’t forget he’s made 16 overseas visits, so we are the 17th, and it is a privilege for us to be receiving him, but over the last four or five, when he has met victims of abuse it has never been announced beforehand, it always takes place in private, and that’s how it should be. So whether that happens now, those same rules would apply. It will not be announced beforehand, and it will take place in private, if that is going to be the case. But precisely because of those rules, it is not clear.

Q: Catholic Voices said the pastoral cost of the visit had gone up from 7 million pounds to 9 million pounds. Is that correct?

A: I would think that is probably a slightly a conservative estimate, it will be in that region, maybe a bit more. But you know, I’m not anxious about that. If you think that there 5 million Catholics in this country, it is about 1.50 pound each. But in fact we are fundraising before the visit has even taken place, has shown that there is a real willingness in the Catholic community to support the pope in this official visit to this country. We are up to 6 million (pounds), we will manage it.

Q: Media reports said there was a lack of interest in the public masses.

A: I was told this morning that they are are pretty well packed now.

Four questions about the pope's trip to the UK

By John L Allen Jr
National Catholic Reporter
Created Sep 03, 2010

Now that September has arrived, news agencies are beginning to focus in earnest on Pope Benedict XVI's Sept. 16-19 trip to the United Kingdom. I know that because of the phone calls and e-mails I've received from colleagues in Scotland and England in the last few days, seeking a sound-bite for whatever curtain-raising piece they have to do.

Press culture in the U.K. is extremely competitive, so when there's no actual news to report it has to be manufactured. Here's a recent case in point vis-à-vis the papal trip: Not long ago, local organizers put out a "pilgrim's guide" for people attending the big events. It included tips on stuff not to bring, such as booze, BBQs, and open flames. Also on the list were musical instruments, which prompted a reporter from the Daily Telegraph to call the bishops' conference to ask: "Does that include the vuvuzela?" (That, of course, is the god-awful horn made famous by the South African World Cup.) The person on the other end of the line said something on the order of, "Well, yes, I suppose it would."

The next-day headline, which predictably became a mini-sensation in "News of the Weird" columns all over the world: "Pope Bans Vuvuzela."

It was great fun, even if each of the three words in that header was misleading. (The pope didn't do anything; this was more of a suggestion than a ban; and nobody specifically nixed vuvuzelas. Though, to be honest, Benedict probably ought to be grateful -- this is one instance in which the media made up something that probably helped his reputation.)

In the spirit of feeding the media beast, I'll present my answers to the four most common questions I've received about the trip. By no means does this add up to a comprehensive analysis of the most important points. Instead, it's a window into the questions reporters are asking, which may preview themes likely to loom large in media coverage.

1. Is this the most challenging trip of Benedict's papacy?

My basic answer is, "Don't flatter yourselves." This will be Benedict's 17th foreign trip, and not only is this probably not the most strenuous test he's faced, it's arguably not even his most demanding visit in Western Europe.

In terms of immediate context, Benedict's 2006 trip to Turkey was far more dicey -- his first to a Muslim nation, hard on the heels of his Regensburg speech which triggered fierce protest around the Islamic world. The pope's 2009 trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories was also a high-wire act, both on the diplomatic and inter-religious levels.

Within Europe, Benedict's July 2006 trip to Spain was at least as potentially choppy, featuring his first-ever showdown with Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero -- seen by many European Catholics as an avatar of secularism on steroids. Spain's fierce anti-clerical rage is at least arguably more menacing for a pope than gentle English ridicule. (Remember the line from "A Man for All Seasons" -- "This isn't Spain, you know. This is England.")

That said, there are challenges aplenty awaiting Benedict.

After all, he's a religious conservative colliding with a fairly liberal, secular culture; a German visiting a country that fought two wars against Germany in the 20th century; a pope travelling to a place where ambivalence about the papacy is part of the DNA; and the head of the Catholic church visiting a culture where the main Catholic storyline of late has been about pedophile priests. All in all, it's a tough room.

Let's count the ways: High-profile atheists want the pope arrested for alleged complicity in covering up sexual abuse scandals. A Foreign Office bureaucrat has suggested that Benedict visit an abortion clinic or launch his own brand of condoms. There's a growing chorus of complaint about why British taxpayers should pay $18.5 million for the trip. Reportedly, British Catholics have been reluctant to pick up their share of the tab, or even to get tickets for the big events, despite the lure of marquee performers such as Susan Boyle. Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robinson is publishing a book called The Case of the Pope, arguing that Benedict should be stripped of his status as "the one man left in the world who is above the law."

There will be some intra-Catholic noise. Advocates of women priests have paid for ads on fifteen red buses in London reading "Pope Benedict -- Ordain Women Now!" Next week, a group called Catholic Voices for Reform is holding a press conference to present Benedict with questions on matters such as "corruption" and "mindless obedience." Outside the Catholic fold, a mix of secularists, gay rights activists, and others plan to march in London on Sept. 18 under the banner of "Protest the Pope!" A smaller group is organizing a separate demonstration against his visit to the Twickenham neighborhood the day before.

If the question is whether Benedict XVI has his work cut out for him, the answer is "sure." I've written before that a papal trip anyplace in Western Europe these days is the sociological equivalent of a Gay Pride rally, in that Catholics too now perceive themselves as a misunderstood minority obliged to practice a politics of identity. Recently Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs in the diocese of Westminster, said that Britain has become more anti-Catholic than Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan, because of its embrace of a "culture of death". Catholic composer James MacMillan, who has produced a new setting of the Mass to mark the papal visit, has called anti-Catholicism "the new anti-Semitism of the liberal intellectual." Whatever backlash awaits Benedict in the U.K. will only strengthen such perceptions.

If the question, however, is whether this trip presents a set of headaches the pope has never seen before, the answer is basically "Been there, done that."

As a footnote, the potential for blowback in Scotland is probably less significant. A recent national poll found only two percent of Scots are "strongly opposed" to the pope's visit, while 31 percent said they're "very or fairly favorable" and 63 percent are indifferent.

2. Overall, what do you expect?

Prediction is a hazardous business, but here's one I feel safe in making: Whatever the consensus public expectations are for the trip, Benedict will almost certainly exceed them. I have three reasons for saying so.

First, when Benedict hits the road, he benefits from the bar being set low. People know his papacy has been marred by a series of PR debacles, so anything that happens short of absolute disaster can be spun as a success. Further, most people have never seen the pope before, and what they've heard second-hand usually isn't good -- that he's cold, aloof, authoritarian, repressive, etc. Measured against that caricature, contact with the real man always seems a pleasant surprise. (Perhaps this is the genius behind the Vatican's apparent PR bungling: they've created a scenario in which Benedict basically can't lose.)

Second, anti-papal protestors usually have a bigger voice in the media than their sociological footprint on the ground, so predictions of massive demonstrations almost never materialize. The few who turn out to jeer seem a footnote in comparison to the enthusiastic crowds greeting the pope, especially because the supporters will be in every camera frame, while the protestors won't get within a mile of the action. The vast majority of folk who are unenthusiastic about the pope's presence will simply ignore the trip, rather than mounting barricades.

Third, Benedict is not going to ride into town and give people excuses to get mad. This is not going to be Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi's recent 48-hour whirlwind visit to Rome, where he hired a bevy of female escorts to listen to him proclaim that Islam should be the religion of Europe, demanded that EU nations pay him $6.5 billion a year to stem the flow of illegal immigrants from Africa, blew off a meeting with Italian Bishop Domenico Mogavero, and then took off -- leaving behind a chorus of protests that the visit amounted to a "national humiliation."

That's just not the style of Benedict XVI, who is an unfailingly gracious and humble guest. The road is actually where Benedict's commitment to "affirmative orthodoxy," meaning the most positive spin possible on the traditional Christian message, becomes especially palpable. Each time people have gone into a papal trip expecting the Ali-Frazier prizefight -- the Cologne World Youth Day in '05, for example, or the meeting with Zapatero in '06 -- what they got instead was "I'd like to buy the world a Coke."

Benedict is likely to extol the riches of English history and culture, declaring the tensions opened by the English Reformation closed. He'll express gratitude for progress in Anglican/Catholic relations and reaffirm his commitment to Christian unity. He'll stress the desire of the church to be a positive force for the common good. He'll also try to offer a shot in the arm to the six million Catholics in the U.K., particularly by lifting up the example of Cardinal John Henry Newman, set for beatification in Birmingham on the last day of the papal trip.

All that will strike even dubious Scots or Brits as more friendly than they expected, and will probably produce a short-term boost in the pope's favorability ratings. (After his April 2008 trip to the United States, which was also a laboratory experiment in affirmative orthodoxy, two national polls found a ten-point bump in the percentage of Americans who approved of Benedict's job performance.)

In a recent piece for the English magazine Standpoint, American Catholic writer George Weigel predicted that "Those who expect to meet 'God's Rottweiler' will find instead a shy, soft-spoken man of exquisite manners … Those looking for a hidebound clerical enforcer will meet instead a man of deep faith, a gentle pastor." Based on my experience of covering papal trips, that's about right.

For all those reasons, the trip may not be a home run, but it's unlikely to be a strikeout either. (Or, to use a cricket image, since this is the U.K., Benedict's not going to be a "walking wicket." I presume someone will tell me if I used that term correctly.)

3. Will the sex abuse crisis overshadow the trip?

Probably not. It didn't in the United States or Australia in 2008, both places where the sexual abuse crisis has been more intense. Things have been so comparatively calm in the U.K. that Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton recently suggested that Pope Benedict "may well be relieved to be coming to a place where, unlike some of his other recent trips, there are no big problems for him to sort out."

Here's the main reason, however, why the crisis won't overshadow the trip: A papal journey is one of those rare moments when the Vatican is adept at offering the media another story to do.

While the pope is in town, there will be plenty of compelling pictures and sound: Benedict XVI meeting the Queen, visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, standing in the spot in Westminster Hall where St. Thomas More was condemned, praying at the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor, and on and on. That's as opposed to the Vatican's usual modus operandi during a crisis, which is to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass, issuing only terse statements, while rogue officials offer unsolicited remarks which often make things worse.

In his Standpoint piece, Weigel complained that "seemingly endless stories of clerical sexual abuse, and the mismanagement of these sins and crimes by Catholic bishops, are not the only story to be told about the church at the end of the first decade of the 21st century." He's right, of course, but the PR reality is that the Vatican is often unable to provide an alternative narrative. A papal trip is the towering exception.

Three other variables may determine how big a deal the crisis seems while Benedict is on the ground.

First, some observers believe that media outlets are planning to reveal new abuse cases in the U.K. just ahead of Benedict's arrival, thus triggering a new cycle of the crisis, akin to what happened in Germany earlier this year. Writing in the Guardian on Monday, Paul Donovan opined that such revelations "would shoot to pieces the strategy that has attempted to separate the church in the U.K. from the rest of the world on child abuse, arguing it acted properly and put in place rigid guidelines."

Second, Cardinal Seán Brady of Ireland has announced plans to accompany the pope in Scotland and England. Brady has been under fire for his role in the massive sexual abuse crisis in Ireland, including charges that in the 1970s he participated in putting the victims of a notorious abuser under a gag order. If Brady is spotted at the pope's right hand, it could spark a new round of commentary about how Benedict "doesn't get it."

Third, the pope himself could put the crisis in the spotlight by holding a meeting with victims. While these encounters are always staged off-camera, at least some of the victims usually speak with the media afterwards, and in any event they make news. Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster recently said that "careful consideration" was being given to holding such a meeting in England. If it happens, it would be Benedict's fifth session with victims, after meetings during previous trips to the United States, Australia and Malta, and one in Rome with members of Canadian "first nations" abused in church-run institutions.

By now, these meetings draw mixed reviews. The pope gets credit for reaching out, and the victims who take part are often moved. Others, however, will object that it's empty PR. The Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, the main victims' group in the States, put out a preemptive press release ahead of the U.K. trip asserting that such meetings "change nothing and protect no one," and believing they do is "a sad and silly and reckless assumption."

4. What's Benedict's agenda for the trip?

In the sense in which that question is usually intended, the answer is: "None." This isn't a typical state visit, in which Benedict is hoping to persuade the English Parliament to adopt this law or block that one, or aiming to wrest some commercial or foreign policy concession from the Cameron government. There is no short-term check-list, which means that there will be no way to assess on Sept. 20 whether or not the trip was a success.

That's not to say, of course, that Benedict is traveling to Scotland and England just for the hell of it.

The pope legendarily thinks in centuries, and so his "agenda" in the U.K., as elsewhere, is decidedly long-term. His vision of Christianity in the West today is as a "creative minority" (a term he borrows from British historian Arnold Toynbee). By "minority," Benedict means a church that's no longer a culture-shaping majority but rather a subculture, which of course is no more than a concession to sociological reality. By "creative," he means a subculture clear about its own identity, and passionate about infusing that energy and vision into society.

Building a "creative minority" is thus a two-stage project:

Fostering a strong sense of Catholic identity by emphasizing traditional markers of Catholic thought, speech and practice;

Applying that identity to broader social, cultural and political debates, rather than retreating into a ghetto.

In broad strokes, Benedict's "agenda" is to advance the creative minority project in the United Kingdom.

What might that mean in practice? Perhaps Peter Sanford, a former editor of the Catholic Herald, had it about right in his piece in Sunday's Guardian: "Pope Benedict may want to stiffen the collective Catholic resolve." Sanford sketched the pragmatic, middle-of-the-road ethos of English Catholicism, often terribly concerned with being socially acceptable. He then quoted an English bishop to the effect that maybe he and his colleagues need to engage in "a little more searching and even brutal debate" with the broader culture.

That, Sanford opined, "will be music to the pope's ears.

A Closer Look at Britain and the Culture of Death

BY EDWARD PENTIN
National Catholic Register
Saturday, September 04, 2010

Ahead of the Pope’s upcoming visit to Great Britain, there’s been a vigorous debate in some sections of the British press over whether the UK is the centre of the ‘culture of death.’

The discussion was sparked by a timely interview in Zenit with the director of pastoral affairs for the Westminster archdiocese, Edmund Adamus, and in particular this comment he made near the beginning:

“Whether we like it or not as British citizens and residents of this country—and whether we are even prepared as Catholics to accept this reality and all it implies—the fact is that historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death. Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years or more have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage.”

That policies directly opposed to a culture of life have taken root in the UK is well known among a good number of British Catholics and pro-life campaigners. But in the face of protestations among some columnists who beg to differ, I wanted to see how much this label could be backed up with solid facts.

Below is some evidence I dug up on my home country’s record on life issues over the past 50 years. It’s by no means exhaustive but the findings are undeniable, highly disturbing and back up Adamus’ assertion:

On Abortion:

• The UK has the highest number of abortions than any country in Europe with an average of 600 unborn children killed every day.
• 210,529 babies were killed in the womb in 2008* (the UK Department of Health puts the figure lower at 195,296). This compares to 114,484 in Germany (which has a higher population than Britain), 115,812 in Spain (a slightly lower population), and 121,806 in Italy (roughly the same population). The proportion of induced abortions as a percentage of pregnancies was higher than the U.S. (22.3% compared to 16.6%) in 2006 (the latest available figures).
• In 1958, 1,570 abortions (a rough estimate) were carried out in Britain; in 1968, a year after the Abortion Act, the figure was 23,991. The following year, it had over doubled to 53,643. By 1973, the figure had shot up to 120,160.*
• In the UK, unborn babies with disabilities can still be aborted right up to birth, according to the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
• 9 out of 10 unborn babies diagnosed with spina bifida are aborted. A similar proportion of Down’s Syndrome babies are aborted.
• In May 2008, in the first vote on abortion for 18 years, MPs voted against reducing the time limit for abortions from 24 to 20 weeks, even though a lowering of the limit had been predicted. Then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the current deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg voted to keep the limit; David Cameron, the current Prime Minister, voted to lower it to 22 weeks.
• A few weeks ago, Britain’s new Coalition government announced a new maternal health initiative with an “unprecedented focus on family planning” for the developing world. The plan includes the promotion of abortion and sexual “rights” for children.

On Embryology:

• Britain allows embryonic stem cell research and is the only country in the world to have legislated in favour of hybrid human/animal embryo research, passed in 2008 under the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act. Gordon Brown initially wanted to use a three line whip (i.e. force all his Labour MPs to vote on the legislation) to pass the Bill which was also supported by David Cameron. The Act also allows for the first time single women and lesbians to have treatment in fertility clinics.
• The legislation went ahead despite notable scientists saying they didn’t know what the benefits of such experiments would be.
• Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh and St. Andrews described the legislation as a “monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life”, adding that it would allow experiments of “Frankenstein proportion”.

On the Family:

• Civil partnerships legislation in 2004 gave same-sex couples rights and responsibilities comparable to civil marriage. Although same-sex marriage is banned in the UK, civil partnership ceremonies are widely seen among the population at large as marriages.
• The Catholic Church said at the time that the legislation undermines the importance and unique status of marriage which supports individuals, society and children.

On Euthanasia:

• ‘Passive’ euthanasia is allowed, that is when treatment a patient has not consented to (i.e. food and water) is withdrawn, though ‘active’ euthanasia (when treatment is administered with the intention of ending the patient’s life) is banned.
• Some parliamentarians regularly try to push through laws to permit active euthanasia.

On Education:

• Increasing pressure is being put on schools and charities to give information about abortion, introduce explicit sex education, to accept homosexual activity as normal, while ignoring the value of marriage.

No doubt there are more examples one could add to the list, not least the country’s early embrace of, and enthusiasm for, a contraceptive mentality.

Yet it should be added there are some highly praiseworthy aspects of Britain society which support a culture of life: British people tend to be very generous in charitable giving both at home and abroad (after the recent floods in Pakistan they gave significantly more than the government), and most people have sincere, if at times misguided, concerns for social justice. In rural areas, a sense of community is largely alive and well, and most people are generally kind and well intentioned.

But when it comes to core life issues, ones that concern the most weak and vulnerable, Britain has an enormous blind spot. Why this is so was neatly summed up by Robert Moynihan, publisher of Inside the Vatican, in a recent email bulletin. “Great Britain is the home of utilitarianism, of a pragmatic, problem-solving, technological view of human affairs,” he wrote. Justice and generosity, he added, “are “secondary” to “the main business” of life, which, in the utilitarian view, is business.”

Such attitudes tend to sideline talk of ethics and morality which usually only become part of the conversation when the well-being of animals is involved. (On a trip to England a couple of weeks ago, I witnessed an enormous outcry in the media after a woman was caught on CCTV putting a cat in a garbage bin.)

All being well, the Holy Father’s visit will highlight what matters most and effectively lead Britain towards understanding and embracing the Truth. As Moynihan writes:

“Benedict wants to be in England because a new paganism has triumphed in Western society, articulately in England. In many ways he is motivated by what he said in God and the World: “Whenever a person or society refuses to take God’s business seriously, some way or the other, the fate of Gomorrah overtakes them again… Whenever any society turns away from fellowship with the living God, it cuts the root of its social cohesion. We see such retribution at work even today.” He is in England to point out the “narrow way” that leads away from the dead end and desolation of “Gomorrah” — the “narrow way” taken by More, Fisher, Newman, and countless thousands of others.”


* Figures from the Johnston Archive, an online database on abortion statistics drawing on figures given by the UN, the Guttmacher Institute and the Council of Europe.

Cardinal O’Brien accuses BBC of attempting to 'humiliate' Pope, says is time for religion editor

London, England, Sep 6, 2010 / 09:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the senior Catholic authority in Scotland, accused the BBC on Sunday of being contaminated by “a radically secular and socially liberal mindset.” Then prelate added that the public corporation headed by Mark Thompson, a 52-year-old Jesuit educated Catholic, should appoint a religion editor immediately.

Cardinal O'Brian, who is Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh also accused the BBC of plotting a “hatchet job” on the Vatican in a documentary about clerical sex abuse on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain.

“This week the BBC’s director general admitted that the corporation had displayed ‘massive bias’ in its political coverage throughout the 1980s, acknowledging the existence of an institutional political bias,” the cardinal said.

“Our detailed research into BBC news coverage of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, together with a systematic analysis of output by the Catholic church, has revealed a consistent anti-Christian institutional bias,” he added.

As proof, Cardinal O'Brian pointed out to 15 percent decline in religious programming over the past 20 years. Also, he added, insiders at the BBC have privately admitted that there is a cultural intolerance of Christianity at the corporation.

“Senior news managers have admitted to the Catholic Church that a radically secular and socially liberal mindset pervades their newsrooms. This sadly taints BBC news and current affairs coverage of religious issues, particularly matters of Christian beliefs.”

The Archbishop of Edinburgh voiced his fears that the BBC will use a forthcoming documentary called "Benedict –Trials of a Pope" to "humiliate the Pontiff on the eve of his visit to Britain." The program was created by Mark Dowd, a homosexual former Dominican friar, and will be aired on September 15.

The cardinal joined the recent Church of England's demand that the broadcaster appoint a religion editor to address the issue of the decline and the bias on religious information.

The BBC immediately dismissed Cardinal O’Brien’s criticism of its religious coverage. A spokeswoman told The Telegraph that “BBC news and current affairs has a dedicated religion correspondent.”

In fact, the BBC appointed Mr. Aaqil Ahmed last year as head of religious broadcasting, the first Muslim to hold that position.

Nevertheless, Roger Bolton, who presents BBC's Radio 4’s "Feedback," said early this year at an awards ceremony in London that the religious perspective was often "bafflingly absent" both on air and behind the scenes in editorial discussions.

“BBC television, unlike BBC Radio, seems to be in the hands of the secular and skeptical, who view religious coverage as a rather tiresome obligation to be minimized rather than a rich and promising area to explore,” said Bolton.

He also noted that Aaqil Ahmed had a proven record in his previous job at Channel 4, but that at the BBC, his “playing field" was "more the size of a fives court than a football pitch.”

Bolton added that BBC News should appoint a religion editor of a similar seniority and prominence to business editor Robert Peston, to appear prominently on its radio and TV bulletins.

“BBC News requires a religion editor, able to appear on the networks to interpret the latest religious story at home and abroad, but more importantly to bring a religious perspective to the vast range of areas such as foreign affairs and medical dilemmas where that perspective is so often, and so bafflingly, absent,” said Bolton.

Will we be converted by the Pope’s visit?

Pope Benedict XVI faces a sceptical reception when he arrives for four-day trip to Britain next week. Cristina Odone wonders whether he can win over his critics

By Cristina Odone
Telegraph.co.uk
05 Sep 2010

The visitor to the More Hall care home in Stroud, Gloucestershire, usually finds an oasis of pious tranquillity. But for some days now, the Benedictine nuns who run the home have been in a state of high excitement: two of the sisters have won tickets to Birmingham on September 19 to see Pope Benedict XVI. The beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman will take place at Cofton Park and – “God willing” – Sister Elsy Poonoly and another nun will be there. “We are very pleased,” Sr Elsy tells me, “and very excited.”

Threats of a citizen’s arrest; protests from survivors of priestly abuse and the gay rights lobby; some spectacular organisational bungling on the part of the Catholic hierarchy in this country: nothing can dent the sheer joy felt by many of Britain’s four million Catholics at the prospect of seeing the Pope in their midst. In what must count as the annus horribilis of the Church, when every day seemed to bring fresh revelations of abuse by priests of their young charges, the Catholic faithful are hungry for reassurance. Apart from a miracle – Richard Dawkins’s Damascene conversion? Cardinal Newman, resurrected, fulminating at the next gathering of the British Humanist Association? – the papal visit, with its pomp and picnics, is the best means to restore hope and rekindle faith.

“The visit gives us our one chance to hear the Pope directly,” says the composer James MacMillan. “It will be of immense value to us, as his flock, to receive his message without the media’s negative interpretation. The impact will be felt for decades – we’re still talking about John Paul II’s visit in 1982.”

This will be a very different papal visit. When Benedict XVI lands at Edinburgh airport on September 16, he will not drop to his knees and kiss the ground, as his predecessor did. This is not only because the octogenarian pontiff is physically frail and less of a showman, but because the grand romance of that gesture would strike a false note today.

The Polish Pope’s coup de théâtre perfectly encapsulated the vigour and glamour of the Catholic Church 30 years ago. The papacy was respected for waging battles against totalitarian regimes in the former USSR and South America. John Paul II, blessed with Hollywood magnetism and capable of Churchillian oratory, held non-Catholics as well as Catholics in thrall.

These are different times. Catholics have watched in horror as, almost daily and almost in every country, broken men and women have come forth to tell of their ordeal at the hands of abusive priests. Here in Britain, Catholics have witnessed their Church being subjected to humiliating attacks from a commentariat which, more than anywhere in the world, is strident in its hostility to all religions.

MacMillan is convinced that Benedict will be able to “counter the primal anti-Catholicism here in Scotland and in England. We need to show people what the Pope is like. That will convert them.”

Privately, organisers of the papal visit must be wondering whether the numbers attending each event will be sufficient to fill the venues, let alone bring about the conversion of England. As one source who asked not to be named explained, ticket sales outside of London have been disappointing and donations from the faithful limited.

“He’s not a money-spinner,” confirms Andreas Campomar, editorial director at the publishers Constable & Robinson. “There’s been no interest in doing a book on the papal visit, or a celebration of Benedict to tie-in with his coming. There is, instead, appetite for anti-Catholic, anti-Pope books centred on priestly abuse.”

For Campomar, Benedict XVI is not only a victim of age-old anti-Catholic feeling, whipped up by the recent scandals, but also of anti-German prejudice. A half-German Catholic himself, Campomar sees the Pope as “fatally Germanic” in his precision and unwavering conviction. “It boils down to his not being simpatico. People don’t warm to him.”

Lord Guthrie, a Catholic convert, dismisses complaints that Benedict is not “a people person”. “This is a holy man, not a celebrity. We cannot judge him by the standards of a pop star. He would be horrified if he thought people saw him as anything other than a spiritual man who has devoted his whole life to the Church.”

Benedict would be horrified, too, one suspects, if either his Popemobile, a performance by the Irish clergy trio The Priests, or Carol Vorderman – the former Countdown presenter who has been hired as a warm-up before the Pope’s appearance at a Mass in Hyde Park – distracted the faithful from what he sees as his mission here: the beatification of John Henry Newman.

Newman’s work on the evolution of theology, his writings on religion and his theories of education have inspired generations of scholars. The hope is that his beatification will encourage legions of ordinary British Catholics to believe that they, too, can become spiritual local heroes. Benedict, like John Paul II, who created more saints than all other popes together, believes that beatification and canonisation can serve as powerful prods to renew a flagging faith. This is the “Yes we can” spirit, in a Catholic context.

From the sidelines, members of the established Church will watch with interest and perhaps not a little regret as a man who started life as one of their own is elevated to “Blessed” status. Benedict XVI cannot be accused of “scalp-collecting” in Newman’s case; but few close to the Archbishop of Canterbury will forgive the Pope for trying to lure disaffected Anglicans to Rome during the row over women bishops last year. Rowan Williams and Benedict XVI both boast a brilliant intellect, but neither seems inclined to use it to cement an ecumenical alliance. Those who hope that this visit will somehow thaw the frosty relations between Rome and Canterbury should see the Popemobile as proof of their delusion: there’s only room for one.

Can Benedict XVI transform the image of the Catholic Church in Britain in his four days here? A poll published this week shows the notion is not as risible as it may seem. People were asked to comment on whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements contained in the Pope’s third encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate. Twelve representative statements, taken directly from the letter, were tested and a significant majority agreed with 11 of them – from “Investment always has moral as well as economic significance” to “An overemphasis on rights leads to a disregard for duties”. A majority even agreed with Catholic teaching about sexuality: 63 per cent felt that it is “irresponsible to view sexuality merely as a source of pleasure”.

Ed Stourton, a lifelong Catholic and the BBC broadcaster who will anchor much of the Corporation’s coverage of the visit, is not surprised by these findings. “People are looking for an alternative to the moral relativism that has become the ideology of today. Benedict is one man who really challenges the status quo: the disillusioned can’t help but be drawn to his words.”

Here, then, is the challenge before the Pope: he must drag his message on the human condition out of the shadow cast by the child abuse scandals. It is a long shadow; but his is a worthwhile message.

STATISTICS FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN

VATICAN CITY, 7 SEP 2010 (VIS) - For the occasion of Benedict XVI's forthcoming apostolic trip to the United Kingdom, due to take place from 12 to 15 September and during which he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, statistics concerning the Catholic Church in that country have been published. The information, updated to 31 December 2009, comes from the Central Statistical Office of the Church.

Great Britain has a surface area of 230,762 square kilometres and a population of 59,381,000 of whom 5,264,000 (8.87 percent) are Catholic. There are 32 ecclesiastical circumscriptions and 2,977 parishes. Currently there are 59 bishops, 5,225 priests, 6,497 religious, 160 lay members of secular institutes and 34,669 catechists. Minor seminarians number 2, and major seminarians 245.

A total of 806,334 children and young people attend 2,828 centres of Catholic education, from kindergartens to universities. Other institutions belonging to the Church, or run by priests or religious in Great Britain include 8 hospitals, 1 clinic, 171 homes for the elderly or disabled, 79 orphanages and nurseries, 94 family counselling centres and other pro-life centres, 147 centres for education and social rehabilitation, and 31 institutions of other kinds.