What an odd letter.
I could see the point if they said "Look, we know that technically speaking he is a head of state, but we all know that the Vatican isn't really a proper country, and that he is really the head of religious body - so surely a state visit isn't really appropriate."
Or, to put it another way, if they had just sent in their first two sentences and (most of) the last sentence, their letter would have been reasonable.
We, the undersigned, share the view that Pope Ratzinger should not be given the honour of a state visit to this country. We believe that the pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country. We reject the masquerading of the Holy See as a state and the pope as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to amplify the international influence of the Vatican.But they seem to be saying "If he held progressive opinions, we wouldn't have a problem with the Pope being accorded the honour of a state visit*, but we really don't like the Roman Catholic Church and its beliefs - and it has made some major mistakes in the past - so we think that a state visit is inappropriate."
However, even the second sentence managed to amuse me. "We believe that the pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country."
Yes, it's that phrase "a citizen of Europe". I'd heard of European citizenship, but I thought that meant "a citizen of a country that was part of the European Union." To refer to the Pope as "a citizen of Europe" implies, to me at least, that Europe is a nation state.
(*And they would probably feel that the £12 million cost of the visit to the tax-payer would be money well spent if the Pope was using his visit to advocate progressive opinions!)
Posts
6 comments:
I'm not a fan of the pope, but these humanists have been like a dog with a bone. Notice how they cause deliberate offence by calling him "Pope Ratzinger".
That's what they think he should be called, therefore that's what he should be called because they are always right.
But, yes, of course, if only he were "progressive" he would be given the red carpet treatment and even Peter Tatchell would want to kiss his ring (erm, you know what I mean!).
And here was me thinking that they just called him "Pope Ratzinger" because they didn't know any better.
:-)
For the record, I'm a huge fan of this Pope, and not just because I am a Catholic. However, I think this visit has done a great deal of good, not only for Catholics.
Huge crowds have turned out every day, in different parts of the country. Meanwhile, the secular nihilists could only muster 10000 on one occasion. Secularists so often tell us what we are allowed to believe, say and do, and yet the voice of faith has in fact been so much stronger. The appeal of Pope Benedict has been so wide, but the appeal of the secularist now looks like a group of rather socially homogenous individuals talking to themselves.
It's interesting to see the main groups of protestors: Iain Paisley's Evangelical Fundamentalists, Isalmist "up with the Taliban and Al Qaeda: Benedict go to hell" Fundamentalists, and then Peter Tatachell and Richard Dawkins. It's interesting to see what company the secular fundamentalists keep. It was also interesting to see one of their key (but rather less convincing) complaints was the Holy Father's opposition to the ordination of women.
There was some lesbian asking why she should pay for Pope's visit - I wonder if she ever asks herself why I as a Catholic should have to pay for abortions.
The key thing was that people were able to see the Holy Father without the distorting lens of the secularist media. Now that people can see that the picture painted by the media was clearly false, perhaps we can roll back some of the other prejudices of the population as a whole. We could being with their assumption that child-abuse is somehow worse in the Catholic Church than in secular society, and that this Pope has been involved in a cover-up or that he was a Nazi.
Viva il Papa, and John Henry Newman, pray for us!
I see Damien Thompson has expressed, rather better than me, my own thoughts on the subject:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100054282/benedict-in-britain-personal-triumph-for-the-pope-humiliation-for-secular-fanatics/
Thanks for that, Albert.
It's good to get your perspective on other subjects, but I particularly appreciate your perspective on the Pope's visit.
Your point about the social homogeneity of the protesters is an important one. Damian Thompson uses the phrase "mostly white, middle-class, metropolitan," and while I don't know about the latter two, the point that they are overwhelmingly white is undoubtedly true, and quite significant.
The other thing that has been interesting is watching the behaviour of some of the more rabid secularists. While thoughtful atheists like Brendan O'Neill write interesting and thoughtful articles, some less thoughtful individuals really seem to have allowed their emotions to rule their minds. (Yes, yes, I know that we all do, but most of us don't do it quite so flagrantly.) I'm surprised that all these people were willing to put their name to the letter. A lot of them come over as being not just doctrinaire, but also highly authoritarian.
"I'm a huge fan of this Pope, and not just because I am a Catholic."
Don't worry, Albert. I never doubted it.
:-)
(Yes, yes, I know that we all do, but most of us don't do it quite so flagrantly.)
Yes, but the difference is, we don't do so while pouring scorn on anyone who isn't a thorough-going evidentialist rationalist. It's the inconsistency in the doctrinaire secularists that I enjoy.
Post a Comment