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Pope makes Catholics feel welcome in their homeland
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
September 22, 2010
Dorothy Cummings McLean
It was Friday, Sept. 17, and Pope Benedict XVI was sitting before the high altar of Westminster Abbey, the first Pope ever to do so. Beside him was the Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, he of the fly-away eyebrows, reading an address.
“Christians have,” the archbishop read, with an apologetic glance at the pontiff, “very diverse views about the nature of the vocation that belongs to the See of Rome.”
Benedict’s own eyebrows flew up, and he looked to the side. He smiled. My sitting-room erupted with laughter.
“Christians have,” the archbishop read, with an apologetic glance at the pontiff, “very diverse views about the nature of the vocation that belongs to the See of Rome.”
Benedict’s own eyebrows flew up, and he looked to the side. He smiled. My sitting-room erupted with laughter.
“I’ll play it again,” said my husband Mark, clicking on the BBC’s webpage. My laptop was connected to a projector; we were watching the prayer service on the sitting-room wall.
“…very diverse views about the nature of the vocation that belongs to the See of Rome.”
Eyebrow rise in Westminster Abbey. Roars in Edinburgh sitting-room.
“Once again!”
Our party was on Saturday night, a bibulous vigil for Newman’s beatification. Three guests wore yellow Benedict XVI soccer scarves; they had purchased them along Edinburgh’s crowded Regent Road on Thursday morning. About 125,000 Scots had lined the streets of Edinburgh to welcome Benedict. Tens of thousands more lined the streets of Glasgow that afternoon. And 70,000 Catholics crammed into Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park to celebrate Mass with the Holy Father, cheering, praying and singing. Then Benedict flew to London, where 200,000 lined the streets, and thousands crammed into Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral and Hyde Park to see him. Finally, Benedict went to Birmingham to pronounce Cardinal John Henry Newman beatified, with 65,000 Catholics joining him in Cofton Park.
For four days, the headlines screamed Pope, Pope, Pope. The iconic photograph was of the Holy Father leaning from the popemobile to kiss pink-jacketed baby Maria Tyszczak in Glasgow. This was not the Benedict the press had expected to see.
My thought, upon first seeing and hearing the Holy Father, was that “God’s Rottweiler” was a ridiculous slur on this small, shy, beaming man. Some call him Papa Ratzi; Opa (grandpa) Ratzi is more like it. His combination of paternal authority, mental acuity and physical frailty was irresistible. It made me want to hug him, and the UK was bowled over.
But no crown without a cross. The past few months have been vile for faithful Catholics in Britain. Not only has the press banged the drum of the clerical sex scandals day after day, but professional atheists have tripped over each other in their haste to proclaim how evil the Pope and Catholicism are. Ordinary Catholics have been smeared by such British polemicists as Julie Birchill, who wrote in the Independent “… if one is a Catholic, surely duplicity and double-speak are second nature.” Peter Tatchell, the organizer of London’s anti-Pope protest, filmed a ludicrous documentary called The Problem with the Pope; it aired twice on Channel 4 on the Monday before Benedict’s arrival. Channel 4 also aired a “special report” on the 22 (punished, suspended) Catholic clerical sex abusers in the UK. And, as if caught in a sectarian time warp, the Rev. Ian Paisley announced that he would travel from Ulster to protest the Pope.
In response, Britain’s Catholics turned out in our tens of thousands wherever the Holy Father went. And we had our reward: the Holy Father spoke again and again, not of the sex abuse crisis, although he mentioned it with sorrow and met with survivors, but of the rightful place of Christianity in British culture and public discourse. For months the British press had served as a forum for those who would shame all Catholics silent and obedient to the wills of the Richard Dawkinses, the Peter Tatchells, the Julie Birchills and the Ian Paisleys. The Holy Father arrived and said for us — at the Palace of Holyrood House, at Westminster Hall, at Westminster Abbey, before the Queen, before Prime Ministers, before journalists — No. No, the voices of Catholics and of other Christians in Britain must not be ignored, sneered at, drowned out. Yes, the name and teachings of Jesus Christ must be pronounced aloud. No wonder, day after day, we cheered and screamed.
The press was taken aback. Their predictions that the papal visit would fizzle out like damp fireworks proved false. Hundreds of thousands of happy cheering Catholics are hard to ignore, and we make good TV. So do pomp, pageantry and carefully planned liturgies. I was a pilgrim at the Mass in Bellahouston Park, and I participated as best I could in the Mass at Westminster Cathedral by watching it live online. The rituals and music were glorious, and when the cathedral doors opened to reveal the Holy Father to the 2,500 cheering teenagers waiting for him outside, my eyes filled.
Benedict has returned to Rome, but he has not left Britain unchanged. The current mood is one of respect and of expectations turned upside down. Thank you, Holy Father. We’re so glad you came.
Dorothy Cummings McLean