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The Holy Scapegoat: Benedict XVI
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
March 25, 2010
Dorothy Cummings McLean
I am not new to life in Britain. When I was three, my family lived in Cambridge, England, while my father did post-doctoral work. One Sunday as we were leaving Mass at Our Lady and the English Martyrs, an Englishman walked past us and sneered.
“Catholic bastards,” he said.
“Had there been an IRA bombing that week?” I asked my mother, 36 years later.
“Catholic bastards,” he said.
“Had there been an IRA bombing that week?” I asked my mother, 36 years later.
“No,” said Mum tranquilly. “It was just your run-of-the-mill anti-Catholicism, life as usual in Britain since the 16th century.”
I am not new to hearing the Pope badmouthed. Here’s a charming ditty that was once as common in Toronto as it was in Belfast and Glasgow:
This feebleminded verse sprang to mind recently when I heard a Toronto Catholic make an anti-Benedict XVI joke to a Toronto Protestant, who responded with an anti-Benedict snarl. Startled, I almost said that Orangemen made remarks like that. But that might have been untrue. All that Orangemen seem to do in Edinburgh these days is march, bang drums and play flutes. There is no St. Patrick’s Day parade in Edinburgh, but there sure are Orange parades. However, this may be a clue to why the Catholics I know in Edinburgh don’t make the rude remarks about the Pope I have heard too often from Catholics in Toronto and Boston.
Catholics in Britain do not enjoy the same confidence in religious freedom that Catholics in Canada do. Here, for example, is a headline from the Catholic Herald, Britain’s leading Catholic newspaper: “Ed Balls: Catholic schools must teach pupils where they can access abortion.” Ed Balls is the Schools Secretary, a position akin to our Minister of Education. Under a new bill, Catholic schools in England will be forced to teach students how to use artificial contraception, where to get an abortion and why same-sex sex is good.
“Is it too early to talk about home-schooling?” I asked my husband.
We don’t have children yet, but you never know.
“This bill might not apply to Scotland,” said my husband hopefully.
The bill was passed on Feb. 23. But even before it was passed, I was feeling nervous about being Catholic in Britain. A bill that could have forced the church to accept women, sexually active homosexuals and married men as priests was narrowly defeated in the House of Lords. The Irish church’s sex scandals have been in British papers for months. And when Benedict XVI gave his ad limina address to the Scottish bishops, The Scotsman celebrated it with the headline “Pope slams Scotland.”
Was that the exact headline? Try as I might, I can’t find it now. But standing in a bookshop in Edinburgh, surrounded by newspapers screaming of the Holy Father’s supposed insult to Scotland, I was actually frightened. I turned, shuddering, from the headlines, and my own head began to hurt. Sectarianism is still part of Scottish life, lingering in football chants:
What the Holy Father said to raise the ire of The Scotsman was “The church in your country, like many in Northern Europe, has suffered the tragedy of division. It is sobering to recall the great rupture with Scotland’s Catholic past that occurred 450 years ago. I give thanks to God for the progress that has been made in healing the wounds that were the legacy of that period, especially the sectarianism that has continued to rear its head even in recent times.”
“(It) leaves the perception that Scotland is… a place of which he disapproves,” harrumphed The Scotsman. As the wife of a Scottish taxpayer, I think The Scotsman should pay the security bill when the Holy Father comes to visit Scotland in September.
The Times can pay the bill in England. When the German church’s sex-abuse scandal broke, the Times printed the outrageously inaccurate headline: “Pope knew priest was pedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry.” This has been proven completely untrue; perhaps the Times wished it were true. On March 20, before Benedict’s pastoral letter on the Irish child abuse was even published, certainly before reporters saw it, the Times claimed that the letter “has already been judged a failure by many.”
British Catholic journalist Christina Odone has observed that the Times’ “anti-Catholic coverage verges on the hysterical and fanatical.” She wants to know why it is happening. I suspect it is happening because Benedict XVI is coming to Britain at a time when the religious freedom of British Catholics — of the faithful, Mass-attending variety — is once again seen as a block to radical social change.
My pastor struggles not to preach on the same subject every week. But I’ll take up his refrain: Won’t you pray for the Holy Father? As an increasingly scandal-hungry press snarls around him, our Pope needs our prayers.
I am not new to hearing the Pope badmouthed. Here’s a charming ditty that was once as common in Toronto as it was in Belfast and Glasgow:
Up a long ladder
Down a short rope
Hooray for King Billy
To hell with the Pope.
This feebleminded verse sprang to mind recently when I heard a Toronto Catholic make an anti-Benedict XVI joke to a Toronto Protestant, who responded with an anti-Benedict snarl. Startled, I almost said that Orangemen made remarks like that. But that might have been untrue. All that Orangemen seem to do in Edinburgh these days is march, bang drums and play flutes. There is no St. Patrick’s Day parade in Edinburgh, but there sure are Orange parades. However, this may be a clue to why the Catholics I know in Edinburgh don’t make the rude remarks about the Pope I have heard too often from Catholics in Toronto and Boston.
Catholics in Britain do not enjoy the same confidence in religious freedom that Catholics in Canada do. Here, for example, is a headline from the Catholic Herald, Britain’s leading Catholic newspaper: “Ed Balls: Catholic schools must teach pupils where they can access abortion.” Ed Balls is the Schools Secretary, a position akin to our Minister of Education. Under a new bill, Catholic schools in England will be forced to teach students how to use artificial contraception, where to get an abortion and why same-sex sex is good.
“Is it too early to talk about home-schooling?” I asked my husband.
We don’t have children yet, but you never know.
“This bill might not apply to Scotland,” said my husband hopefully.
The bill was passed on Feb. 23. But even before it was passed, I was feeling nervous about being Catholic in Britain. A bill that could have forced the church to accept women, sexually active homosexuals and married men as priests was narrowly defeated in the House of Lords. The Irish church’s sex scandals have been in British papers for months. And when Benedict XVI gave his ad limina address to the Scottish bishops, The Scotsman celebrated it with the headline “Pope slams Scotland.”
Was that the exact headline? Try as I might, I can’t find it now. But standing in a bookshop in Edinburgh, surrounded by newspapers screaming of the Holy Father’s supposed insult to Scotland, I was actually frightened. I turned, shuddering, from the headlines, and my own head began to hurt. Sectarianism is still part of Scottish life, lingering in football chants:
Hullo hullo
We are the Billy Boys
You’ll know us by our noise
We’re up to our knees in Fenian blood
Surrender or you’ll die…
What the Holy Father said to raise the ire of The Scotsman was “The church in your country, like many in Northern Europe, has suffered the tragedy of division. It is sobering to recall the great rupture with Scotland’s Catholic past that occurred 450 years ago. I give thanks to God for the progress that has been made in healing the wounds that were the legacy of that period, especially the sectarianism that has continued to rear its head even in recent times.”
“(It) leaves the perception that Scotland is… a place of which he disapproves,” harrumphed The Scotsman. As the wife of a Scottish taxpayer, I think The Scotsman should pay the security bill when the Holy Father comes to visit Scotland in September.
The Times can pay the bill in England. When the German church’s sex-abuse scandal broke, the Times printed the outrageously inaccurate headline: “Pope knew priest was pedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry.” This has been proven completely untrue; perhaps the Times wished it were true. On March 20, before Benedict’s pastoral letter on the Irish child abuse was even published, certainly before reporters saw it, the Times claimed that the letter “has already been judged a failure by many.”
British Catholic journalist Christina Odone has observed that the Times’ “anti-Catholic coverage verges on the hysterical and fanatical.” She wants to know why it is happening. I suspect it is happening because Benedict XVI is coming to Britain at a time when the religious freedom of British Catholics — of the faithful, Mass-attending variety — is once again seen as a block to radical social change.
My pastor struggles not to preach on the same subject every week. But I’ll take up his refrain: Won’t you pray for the Holy Father? As an increasingly scandal-hungry press snarls around him, our Pope needs our prayers.
Dorothy Cummings McLean