The Pope in England II

These are a few very scattered reflections on the Pope's recent visit to the UK.

After all the controversy and build up, the Papal visit to England is over, and the Holy Father didn't come close to  being arrested.  There were protests, and even though some tried to down play it by working the percentages, almost 10,000 dissenters at one event is not insignificant.  Though he did make a great point about the demographic breakdown of  the protesters versus the faithful.  While the protesters were mainly white middle class sophisticates the author suggested we:

Compare the protestors to the Catholics in Hyde Park: old Polish ladies, tweedy gents from the shires, African hospital cleaners, self-consciously cool teenagers, Filipino checkout assistants and, as one of my friends put it, “some rather tarty-looking traveller women who’d obviously had a glass or two”. They don’t call it the Catholic Church for nothing: if not a universal cross-section of humanity, it was a damn sight closer to it than the humanist smugfest. (Damian Thompson, UK Guardian)

I'm just beginning to read through the Pope's words, but you have to hand it too him; he's unafraid.  He chose to defend the place of religion in public life on the spot where St. Thomas More was condemned for defending the role of the Papacy.  For those who will respond that St. Thomas was defending freedom of conscience, I counter that as a judge he had no problem condemning Protestants who were following their consciences no less sincerely.  No, he was standing against a civil authority that had overstepped it's legitimate bounds of authority, and I would add, competency, in declaring the King of England and his successors, supreme head of the church in England.  This was not done for religious reasons, but rather political expediency, the very motives Benedict is urging us to avoid.

He has made these hard points with clarity and charity. I have for a long time thought we are in a culture war, but the Pope is showing me that if it is a war, our weapons must be those of simple reason and a charitable heart, and of course, deep faith in Christ.