By Peter Stanford
The Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Published: 8:52AM BST 20 Sep 2010
In a damp Birmingham park before a crowd of 55,000 worshippers, Pope Benedict XVI rounded off his visit to Britain yesterday by beatifying the Victorian convert and theologian John Henry Newman. Like Newman (best remembered, said Benedict, for his "keen intellect and prolific pen"), this Pontiff has long enjoyed a reputation for being a complex, clever but rather dry academic, favouring language that is difficult to understand and moral positions that are uncompromising. Hence his nickname, "God's rottweiler". Or at least that was how Benedict was seen until he arrived in Britain. What a difference four days can make.
Pope Benedict XVI addresses a mass to beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, (Pictured background) in Cofton Park, in Birmingham, central England, on September 19, 2010. Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to Britain has been a 'spiritual success', his spokesman said here Sunday.(Getty Images)
When the Pope argued in his homily that, contrary to popular prejudice, Newman was in fact a "warm and human" character, a parish priest and "pastor of souls" as well as a great thinker, he might well have been referring to himself. If this state visit has achieved anything, it has been to show a decidedly sceptical public that the parish priest of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics does indeed have a heart. Since the theme that the organisers chose for the trip was Newman's motto "Heart speaks unto heart", they must be congratulating themselves on a mission accomplished.
From the moment the television cameras picked up Benedict and the Queen chatting amiably in the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on Thursday, during the traditional exchange of gifts, it was clear that the Pope was determined to reveal himself more as a kindly German shepherd than a rottweiler. Every time the Popemobile pulled to a halt to allow Benedict to reach out and kiss a baby, that pastoral image was reinforced. And it was not a cynical, mechanical ploy. Benedict's voice may have been devoid of intonation, and his face curiously immobile, but his eyes conveyed that same pastorly warmth and humanity that he praised in Newman. Here was an essentially modest man; if not charismatic in the mould of his crowd-pleasing predecessor, John Paul II, then certainly possessing a quiet charm, and emphatically not the woman-hater, gay-basher or ivory-tower bigot of stereotype.
In advance of the visit, siren voices had warned that it would all be a disaster. Few would turn up, we were told. Yet 125,000 lined the streets of Edinburgh, according to the police, and 75,000 came to Glasgow's Bellahouston Park. Everywhere the Popemobile went, the crowds were 10 or 12 deep. As reporters moved among them, it was clear that these were not simply the faithful, coming out of a tribal loyalty to their embattled leader, but people of faith and none, simply curious to witness a moment of history – the first state visit by a pope since the Reformation – and to hear a distinctly counter-cultural message, questioning the remorseless march of the me society, with its twin obsessions of consumerism and celebrity.
Then there were the pre-visit fears about protesters. Militant atheists threatened Benedict with arrest and an appearance before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, alongside Radovan Karadzic, for "crimes against humanity". Nothing materialised. Even Richard Dawkins's shrill, anti-religion fundamentalism was drowned out by the cheers of welcome. If there was one place where the predicted crowds simply failed to show these past four days it was on the "Nope-to-Pope" rally in London on Saturday, a damp squib compared to the 50,000 in nearby Hyde Park for the papal prayer vigil.
So what has changed now that Benedict has returned to Rome? Well, British Catholics are certainly in better heart. Part of the build-up to the Pope's visit was an outbreak of virulent anti-Catholicism that made most of us nervous of standing up and being counted, lest it open us to the charge that we were somehow excusing or overlooking the activities of paedophile priests and colluding in the church's cover-up of them.
Benedict, to our relief, didn't dodge this scandal, which has so sapped Catholicism's moral authority and Catholics' faith of late. In Westminster Cathedral he condemned the "unspeakable crimes" of abusive clerics and – an advance on previous statements – included himself ("all of us" was the phrase) in those who were to blame for not responding quickly enough to reports of wrongdoing. But, as well as meeting victims of perverted priests, he also drew attention to the good work done by the 99.6 per cent of British clergy who have not faced accusations of abuse. There was also a visit to an old people's home in Vauxhall and a meeting at Twickenham with those involved in Catholic schools.
Benedict was also careful not to challenge British Catholics in those areas where they have shown themselves, in poll after poll, to dissent from official church teaching. There was no plea to throw away their condoms, no condemnation of homosexuality and civil partnerships, and no anti-abortion rally. Indeed, there was almost no out-and-out evangelisation. Benedict seemed much more concerned with rekindling the church's dialogue with civil society (another theme he shares with Newman) than with making converts.
What sort of society did every citizen of this country want to live in, he challenged us? Was it one where everyone had an equal worth, as emphasised by Catholic social teaching, one where – in a remark that resonated round Westminster Hall – it was the task of helping the world's poor and marginalised, rather than the banks, that was judged "too big to fail"?
His demand that religion no longer be relegated to the private sphere, that Christmas be publicly celebrated, will have chimed far beyond a core Catholic audience, among the 72 per cent who in the last census described themselves as Christian, and among the 75 per cent who, in a 2008 poll, said the economic crisis had caused them to re-evaluate their core values and search for a more spiritual approach to life.
So will the visit change anything? The "aggressive secularists" who the Pope condemned so plainly may no longer find they enjoy such an exaggerated platform. Politicians may listen more carefully to church leaders when tackling tricky questions of public morality. Believers may feel that they don't have to be afraid of being labelled "nutters" in Tony Blair's chilling phrase if they come out about their faith and how it inspires them.
In terms of specifics, though, what might we expect in the weeks and months ahead? Benedict was careful, throughout his visit, to present Blessed John Henry Newman, as we must now call him, as a model for the discourse between faith and reason, the church and "the public square". There is, of course, another altogether more obvious dimension to the founder of the Birmingham Oratory where the Pope ate his farewell lunch. Newman was an Anglican who felt drawn to the Catholic tradition and who, after much soul searching and to the dismay of many of his friends in the Oxford Movement, rejected the halfway house of Anglo-Catholicism, within the Church of England, to take the Pope's shilling.
There is currently a group within the Church of England, dismayed by the prospect of having to answer to a woman bishop, hovering on the brink of making the same decision as Newman. Benedict, notwithstanding his historic embrace in Westminster Abbey with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has even been offering them inducements – accelerated entry into the Catholic fold, and a special dispensation from the rule that requires priests to be celibate. Will Newman's beatification and the whole papal visit make them more likely to "come over"? Yes. One of the worries of some potential Anglican converts – admittedly more real in Newman's age than our own – is that they are somehow putting themselves outside the mainstream by becoming Catholics. One of the biggest achievements of Benedict's trip, though, was to show Roman Catholicism very much as a valuable and valued presence at the very heart of this multicultural, multi-faith nation.
Peter Stanford is a former editor of the 'Catholic Herald' and author of 'The Extra Mile: A 21st Century Pilgrimage' (Continuum)
Related Links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7897805/Cardinal-Newman-was-much-more-than-a-reluctant-saint.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7892666/Vatican-says-women-priests-a-crime-against-faith.html
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