Media storms cloud papal visit to Britain

You know, The Catholic Register is a nice newspaper. It’s friendly. It’s polite. Sure, Michael Coren wields words like mallets, and I get my digs in, but flip to Fr. Lewis. He’s a nice man. Chicken soup for the Catholic soul. Mary Marrocco is nice, too. Heart-warming. Joanne McGarry speaks up for the Catholic position with class. John Bentley Mays inspired a letter of protest from the Polish Ambassador only once.

I am homesick and teary-eyed about The Register today because of British media coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s anticipated visit to Britain. Nobody seems to have anything nice to say about it.

I read in the Catholic Herald that Channel Four has hired Peter Tatchell, a gay rights activist and founder of the group “Protest the Pope,” to film a documentary about the Holy Father. It is to be aired around the time of his September visit. I read in the Scotsman that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has lodged its own protest, finding it “particularly offensive that this visit results from an invitation to the Pope as Head of State, giving him that recognition and pretended legitimacy which he claims in opposition to the principles of the Reformation.”

Also opposed to the principles of the Reformation is the fact that the 185,000 Roman Catholic Scots who go to Mass on Sunday are free to do so. And as more than half of these are expected to attend Benedict’s open-air Mass at Bellahousten Park in Glasgow, the principles of the Reformation are really going to squirm. When the Holy Father rides down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, and my husband falls to his knees on the pavement, the principles of the Reformation might have to pack it in and call it a day.

But never mind Peter Tatchell and the Free Presbyterians, bizarrely united in their contempt for the Pope. Even more painful is the hysteria over the supposed inability of the Bishops Conference of England and Wales to organize their share of the visit. I don’t know what is worse: the bishops not getting it together, or Catholic media screaming about how they aren’t getting it together. It’s like careening down the highway with a nervous driver and his overbearing mother.

Benedict XVI is coming to Britain on a state visit. But he is coming also to visit Catholics and to beatify John Henry Cardinal Newman, one of the most beloved English Catholics of the 19th century. Thus, the British government, the Roman Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales and the Roman Catholic Bishops Conference of Scotland are all involved in planning his visit. Unfortunately, many of the sites are as yet unconfirmed, even though the visit is only four months away.

Cue the principal media critic, one Damian Thompson, former editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald. He is also the Blogs Editor of the Telegraph Media Group and therefore one of the most prominent Catholic journalists in Britain. Damian, as his legions of fans call him, has reported the supposed failings of  the bishops with a savagery that would make a Catholic Register columnist weep. Damian recently wrote a mock article in the online Telegraph about organizer Mgsr. Andrew Summersgill’s failure to organize a drunken party in a brewery. And Damian is a devout, Mass-attending Catholic.

No rumour about the papal visit goes unreported, and no decision escapes critique. But it is true that venues described as “official” have not yet been booked. Most prominent among them is Coventry Airport,  the official site for Cardinal Newman’s beatification. Coventry Airport could accommodate 200,000. But now Coventry is said to have been cancelled, and if the beatification is to be moved, as rumoured, to a seminary, only 10,000 Catholics will be able to attend. However, there is another rumour that the preferred venue for the beatification is a disused car plant, with a seating capacity for 100,000.   

The Catholic Herald quotes Summersgill as saying that he is “on track with the planning.” The Catholic Herald says that this is hard to believe. Their story is that British Catholics, who are paying for part of the visit with their donations, are not being kept fully informed. But I don’t think this is the biggest story. The biggest story is how nasty people are being. And as a Catholic Register columnist, I find that very sad.