Feisty debates between Catholics and secularists before pope visit to Britain
If you like debates about religion but were turned off by the uproar in the United States over Koran-burning and the New York Islamic centre, take a look at the rhetorical duelling that’s been going on in Britain ahead of Pope Benedict’s visit there starting on Thursday. For the past few weeks, the leading lights of secularist and atheist thought have been hammering away at the Catholic Church, playing up its sins like the sexual abuse crisis and arguing that the pope doesn’t deserve the honour of a state visit. A quick Google search digs out plenty of them.
On the other side, a group of lay Catholics has formed a speakers’ bureau ready to face off with the critics and defend the pope and the Church. They’re a kind of rapid reaction force, ready to appear anywhere to refute the secularists and atheists. The result has been a feisty in-your-face exchange providing the pro and contra arguments for many current disputes over the Catholic Church. Some arguments could be criticised as too emotional or even irrational, but boring they’re not.
Catholic Voices, the speakers’ bureau that’s been putting up sparring partners for the Church’s critics, must already rank as one of the big innovations of this papal tour. Popes are no strangers to protests when they visit foreign countries, but the Vatican and the local Church hierarchy usually ignore the critics or give cautious responses. Under Pope Benedict, Vatican public relations has been so badly organised that both he and his aides have often provided even more fuel for criticism. Given the strong and mostly critical interest the media would show in the pope’s visit, these speakers – journalists, lawyers, students and a few clergy – decided the Church needed a more professional operation if it was to get its message across.
Catholic Voices coordinator Austen Ivereigh (photo at far right in screengrab from Sky TV debate, click on image for video), a former deputy editor of The Tablet and spokesman for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, gave me his thoughts about the project and how it’s been doing:
“We thought that our model of a ‘media-friendly, studio-ready, ego-free’ speakers would work well for both the Church and the 24-hours news media, but we’ve been amazed at its success. A big part of the success, we think, is that we making ourselves available to talk about absolutely anything –authoritatively, but in straightforward human language. I think the media have been really impressed that ‘ordinary’ Catholics have been standing up and rebutting these critiques – rather than polemicists or professional talking heads (or indeed bishops). We haven’t replaced those, of course, but have offered another kind of “voice” – deliberately non-expert, but very well briefed – alongside the usual commentators and spokespeople.
“It’s the fruit of six months of intensive briefings on hot topics, and media skills training. It’s been enormously satisfying to see a group of 20-odd ‘ordinary’ Catholics – not leaders of Church organisations, but people with jobs, generally in their 20s and 30s – appear in studios and carry off an effective 3-minute live broadcast interview. I think we’ve presented a much more ‘real’ face of the Church than the media are used to.
“The ferocity of the criticism directed at the Pope and the state nature of the visit – a lot of it deeply irrational, and clumsy in its allegations – has kept us in demand; journalists have been looking for responses that are straightforward and human, and which reflect attitudes in the Catholic community.”
Pope must make amends, say British abuse victims
Victims of abuse by Catholic priests urged the Vatican on the eve of Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain to hand over lists of suspected offenders to the police to prevent further cases of clerical sex crimes.
Speaking in London on Wednesday, a group of victims and activists said the Vatican should go beyond verbal apologies and offer concrete steps to make amends over clergy abuse.
“The pope is the boss. He has the capacity to do these things. Words must be backed up by actions,” said Peter Saunders, chief executive of a charity called the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. “We need the pope to say: ‘I will hand over all information I have about abusing priests, wherever they are in the world, to the authorities of the countries where these people are being protected’.”
In an open letter in the Guardian newspaper, more than 50 British public figures said the pope should not “be given the honour of a state visit” and accused him of failing to address cases of child abuse as well as other issues.
Seats still going for pope’s visit to Britain this week
Thousands of seats have yet to be filled for Pope Benedict’s public masses in England and Scotland this week, a far cry from the warm welcome his predecessor received nearly 30 years ago.
The pope arrives in Scotland on Thursday on a state visit at a time when the Church is struggling with a global sex-abuse scandal and hostility from one of Europe’s most secular nations.
The current pope has had a hard time inspiring the same enthusiasm as charismatic Pope John Paul II did during the first papal visit to Britain in 1982, when hundreds of thousands turned out to see him.
Early starts, strict security, the need to travel in pre-organized groups and the cost of entry have been cited as the reasons why people might not be attending the public events.
from The Great Debate UK:
Pope’s visit both punctual and provident
- Madeleine Teahan is a speaker for the Catholic Voices project. The opinions expressed are her own -
The Holy See is a sovereign entity which has enjoyed diplomatic relations worldwide for at least 1,000 years and as head of this state, the Pope has been invited by the Queen to visit Britain and address civil society.
With the papal visit less than one week away, the Birmingham Post predicts that the Pope’s visit will generate £12.5 million for the city’s economy. In further welcome news, Edinburgh is anticipating a profit of £4 million. With Birmingham and Edinburgh expecting to prosper so significantly from hosting Pope Benedict for one day only, this is a highly auspicious indicator for the economic benefits of the Holy Father’s two-day stay in London.
This hopefully alleviates the taxpayer’s fears about the cost of the papal visit. The legacy of the banking crisis has understandably deepened sensitivities regarding public expenditure. The pursuit of profit must be tempered by an ethical framework in order to serve the common good, not the privileged few. The Pope’s encyclical entitled, ‘Charity in Truth’, published in July 2009, reminds society that “development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the common good”.
There are few heads of state courageous enough to be the voice of the vulnerable and not the architect of political expediency. Aside from the economic fruits his visit will cultivate, British society has never so desperately needed the Pope’s moral courage and wisdom to navigate a just and prudent route at this crossroads in our history.
Pope Benedict’s state visit is both punctual and provident for British society.
from The Great Debate UK:
Britain counts cost of Benedict’s visit
- Terry Sanderson is President of the National Secular Society. The opinions expressed are his own.-
When the Government is about to announce a 25 percent cut in public spending, the tens of millions of pounds showered on Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain seem like real papal indulgence.
The government contribution to this religious jamboree is currently £12 million (up from £8 million), but what we haven’t been told is how much the over-the-top security operation wil cost.
We have tried through Freedom of Information requests to get some idea, but so far we’ve been stonewalled.
Now the chief constable of South Yorkshire, who is co-ordinating the four police forces who are looking after the visit, says his best guess is around £1.5 million.
Rare pope trip to Britain faces welcome ranging from polite to hostile
Pope Benedict this week makes a challenging trip to Britain — only the second by a pope in history — and his welcome in one of Europe’s most secular nations will range from polite to indifferent and even hostile.
Coming on the heels of a simmering scandal of sexual abuse of children by priests in several European countries, strained relations with the Anglicans, and discontent over the taxpayer footing part of the bill, he will have his work cut out for him.
Benedict’s four-day visit starting on Thursday has been fraught with controversy and the reception will be a shadow of the rapturous one given to the charismatic John Paul in 1982.
“There have always been protests on trips but this time the contestation seems wider,” said the Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. “This is part of the climate in a country like England which is pluralistic and outspoken.”
Read the full story here and consult a factbox on Catholicism in Britain here.
Expect papal meeting with UK sexual abuse victims — Patten
One regular but regularly unannounced feature of papal trips in recent years has been the private meeting with local Catholics who were sexually abused as youths by priests. Journalists only find out about them after they’ve taken place. Just such a meeting seems to be on the cards during Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain next week, but of course it does not appear in his official schedule. Chris Patten, the prime minister’s special representative for the papal visit, said as much on Monday in an interview with BBC television (quote at the end of the clip):
“On several previous visits, the pope has met victims of abuse. He has never said he was going to meet them before he did and his meetings have always, for very understandable reasons, been private. I would be surprised if in this visit or any future visit he behaved in any different way.”
When our London correspondent Avril Ormsby asked about any possible meeting with victims in an interview with him last week, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said: “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.”
I agree with the previous two comments. Meeting with a small group of hand-picked victims to pray and extend sympathy is a symbolic gesture which needs concrete action to back it up. The pope met with the US victims for a mere 1/2 hour. They have never had any follow-up contact with his staff. Let’s see the church leaders actually walk the walk, not just talk empty talk.
“Ordain women,” London bus ads will urge Pope Benedict during September visit
Pope Benedict will be confronted by posters on London’s famous red buses during his trip to the British capital next month which will call for the ordination of women priests.
One group of women, Catholic Women’s Ordination (CWO), will have its message plastered on the side of the buses as they travel along key routes, including past Westminster Hall, at the Palace of Westminster, where the pope is set to deliver a speech to Britain’s civic society on September 17.
The group has paid 15,000 pounds ($23,130) for 15 buses to carry the message “Pope Benedict – Ordain Women Now!” for a month. “We do not want to be disruptive, but I think the church has got to change or it will not survive,” CWO spokeswoman Pat Brown told Reuters. “I am quite hopeful at the moment because I think the church is in disarray.”
Some controversy? Catholic Woman priests grab my attention in London today – see my blog http://catholic-lovevolution.blogspot.co m/
No musical instruments please, Vatican asks Britons
Pilgrims attending the large public events during Pope Benedict’s visit to England and Scotland next month have been issued a long list of do’s and don’ts including a ban on musical instruments and steel cutlery.
The list encourages worshipers to bring sunblock, flags and folding chairs for the events in Glasgow, London and Birmingham, but said alcohol, gazebos and lit candles should be left at home because they “could pose a threat.”
It did not specifically mention the vuvuzela, but the noisy World Cup trumpet could be considered out of bounds under the category of banned instruments and whistles. The trip from September 16 to 19 will be the first papal visit since Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visit in 1982 and is the first-ever official papal visit to Britain.
Various protests are expected, including by secularists critical of the trip’s cost, gay rights groups and those angry at the child-abuse scandal which has spread throughout the Roman Catholic church globally.
Pope Benedict XVI leads his Angelus prayer from balcony of his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo August 22, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini
from UK News:
A nightmare week for the Archbishop of Canterbury
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Many members of the Church of England will be wondering "where do we go from here", the morning after the church's parliament voted down a compromise amendment put forward by its two most senior clerics.
The liberal wing of the church will probably feel the road is clear ahead for the ordination of women as bishops after the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were foiled, though there is still a long way to go.
But some among the traditionalist Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals will be wondering where their spiritual home now lies. Some traditionalists may be more persuaded to take up Pope Benedict's offer made last October to convert to Roman Catholicism, in the knowledge that they would be able to retain some of their traditions and liturgy.
They were so dismayed by the amendment's defeat in York, northern England, that some asked the archbishop for an urgent meeting before synod resumes its debate on Monday morning, the Thinking Anglicans website said.
It has not been a good week for Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church.
Not only did he lose the vote, but his attempt to keep the church together by offering traditionalists concessions, drew criticism from people both within and outside the church.
They said it would appear misogynist and out of date, if passed.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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He’s a creepy protector of child abusers and should be arrested and jailed.