Papal Visit
The roads are closed, the flags are out, the crowds have gathered. Edinburgh is at a standstill awaiting the arrival not of our friends, Bill and Eeva-Liisa, returning from their holiday in Finland but of Pope Benedict. His State visit to Britain sees him arriving into Scotland on St. Ninian’s Day. I am sure that he is a godly man despite what the Daily Mail and The Sun, two atrocious tabloid papers have said about him, denouncing him on a number of grounds, including that of being a member of the Hitler Youth Movement. The fact that every German youngster in the 1930’s was signed up for this whether they liked it or not is irrelevant to our irresponsible press who favour sensation more than truth, who fuel fear and prejudice rather than inform comment and debate. However, I can’t help but think of the stark contrast in spirituality that exists between these two men from Rome. Benedict with all the wealth, pomp and power that comes with the Papacy even in these troubled times for the church, contrasted with the simplicity of Ninian. One calling for a return to traditional ways and appealing to the faithful assuming and hoping for a return and reaffirmation of the faith. The other recognising the apostolic and missional task that he then and we today face. Benedict is right when he says that the tides of secularism have swept across Western Europe and with it has been the erosion of traditional Christian virtues and values but we are no longer able to speak to the majority of people in Britain asking them to return to a faith that we assume they know when in reality very few have little semblance of the story, the good news, that shaped and transformed life and society. The religious language that is as real in Baptist, Anglican, House Church and Catholic circles is the language of a religious sub-culture that in the main doesn’t connect with a post Christendom society.
I attended the Welcome Service for a United Reformed Church minister who has come to Wooler for a year post retirement from the States. Nice guy, pleasant people in the congregation. I was almost the youngest there. It was an pleasant service and afterwards speaking to one of the clergy who had gathered for the occasion, he remarked how in this part of the world Christendom still reigns. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Discretion, given his rank in his denomination (what rank has to do with ministry I don’t know!) persuaded me to leave him in ignorance. If he’d lived in the area I would have taken him to any one of a number of places to meet any one of a whole host of people and that would soon dispel any idea that he entertains that Christendom reigns. It does not. Less than 6% of the population have any real affiliation with church of any kind and things like the Pope’s visit and certainly most church services will pass by without touching them in any way.
Bless him. I hope Benedict’s visit is a good one and that for many within the Catholic community particularly in this country, that they may be encouraged in their faith and deepened in their love of God.
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