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Catholics see the positive in the papal visit to UK
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
September 15, 2010
Dorothy Cummings McLean
Still gloomy over Peter Tatchell’s trashing of the Pope, I went to visit a fellow foreign wife. Natasa is from Croatia; the weeks of British anti-papal punditry have shocked her. She hadn’t watched the documentary. “It would have made me sick to my stomach,” she said.
She asked if I had seen the mural outside St. John’s Scottish Episcopalian Church on Princes Street. I hadn’t recently: usually the space promotes some political cause or other, often dripping with red paint representing blood. This week, said Natasa, it featured Galileo, Copernicus and a woman all crossed out with red Xs. St. John’s is along Thursday’s papal parade route.
She asked if I had seen the mural outside St. John’s Scottish Episcopalian Church on Princes Street. I hadn’t recently: usually the space promotes some political cause or other, often dripping with red paint representing blood. This week, said Natasa, it featured Galileo, Copernicus and a woman all crossed out with red Xs. St. John’s is along Thursday’s papal parade route.
I went out to see it, stopping in a news agent’s on the way to buy a bag of chips. The headline of the Scotsman caught my eye: “Paisley comes to capital in Pope protest.”
“No way,” I thought, snatching up the paper. “What year is this, 1972?”
But here it is 2010, and the infamous Reverend Ian Paisley is coming to Edinburgh with 60 ministers from the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster to stage a public protest against the Pope’s presence in the United Kingdom.
The mural of St. John’s did indeed feature Galileo and Copernicus with a figure simply labelled “Woman” between them. She was wearing a Roman collar and holding up a host. Sure enough, all three figures bore red Xs. Galileo I got, but Copernicus died 300 years before the Vatican got around to noticing him. I sent a sorrowful e-mail to the vicar.
But today the penny finally dropped. Scotland and England are Protestant-majority countries. The root of the word Protestant is “protest.” Of course some Protestants are going to protest the Pope. That’s what they do. Duh. Meanwhile, it’s time to stop belly-aching about the lousy press (“35,000 seats empty for Pope’s Mass” blared a placard) and start rooting out what is positive about the papal visit.
To do this I arranged to meet a 20-year-old Polish student for coffee after I visited the Media Centre outside beautiful 17th-century Holyrood Palace. The Media Centre is a series of white huts and a great white tent. I was directed there by a police officer who looked just like the young Ralph Fiennes. Inside one hut, Americans, Britons, a German and at least one Canadian flashed our passports to get our media passes. There seemed to be trouble finding some of them. “What do you mean ‘scored through’?” demanded an unmistakably American voice. “Do you mean ‘crossed off’?”
I went into the great white tent and was given a media package. It included schedules, maps, shortbread cookies and a chocolate bar. Excellent! Then I rushed up the Royal Mile to a café near the University of Edinburgh to interview Aleksandra.
“Are you excited about the Mass in Glasgow tomorrow?” I asked, once I had got my breath.
“Yes, I am,” said Aleksandra tranquilly.
“What do you think of the protests?”
“I don’t think the protesters will affect the visit at all,” she said. “Catholics know what they believe in. Catholics know the purpose of the Pope’s visit. Protests are nothing important compared to the grace of faith.”
The Holy Father lands in Edinburgh Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Prince Philip is being sent to fetch him. My husband and church friends will await him on Princes Street; Natasha plans to stand outside the mural. My allotted train to Glasgow leaves at noon. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Incidentally, pray for us.
Dorothy Cummings McLean