Will The Pope Bring Grace To the UK With Him?

I am starting to get real pessimistic about Pope Benedict's trip to the UK.

First for a Country where one would think there would be hundred of years of experience pulling major events all this off this seems badly planned on the local level which is where 99.9 percent of the stuff is done.

Add in what seems the non stop protests, an anti Catholicism that appears not to be dead at all, and the British media well oh boy.

Now a lot of this of course can be just the typical doom and gloom outlook at that seems to infect a lot of UK media (even Catholic) that also must find the controversy in everything.

However John Allen that is perhaps where of the best reporters on all things Vatican has some more positive thoughts here at Four questions about the pope's trip to the UK ( a good and fuuny read) I loved these part:

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....

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.).........

As I have noted before despite past predictions of the failure of Papal trips of Benedict the Holy Spirit has had other ideas.

That leads me to a interesting article in the UK Telegraph Will we be converted by the Pope’s visit? .

I have a few quibbles with it but on the whole very good.

As to the criticism this apparent myth is produced again by some people interviewed!!!

“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 centered 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.”

Now at some point this same myth we have heard should have fallen away. Benedict has got great crowds in the country he has visited. Further I think his Wednesday audiences might even be above the John Paul II numbers. I actually think this is because his German accent is much easier to understand than John Paul the II's accent (especially in the latter days) and perhaps for the average person Benedict might actually be a better preacher in some ways.

Anyway that is not the focus of the article which on the whole is pretty good. I found this interesting.


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 [without citing that they came from the Pope, though, and the source of statments makes a significant difference in polling responses!] 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”.

Hmmm!! Like we have see before once we get past the media propaganda on the Pope the public likes what it hears.