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Paper on Pope's Visit: "This was the End of the British Empire"
TheSacredPage.com ^
| Friday, September 17, 2010
| Michael Barber commenting on British publication
Posted on 09/21/2010 3:49:00 PM PDT by Salvation
![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NLydHsxn-mw/TJRQG7rSRwI/AAAAAAAABXM/j-BG--dzJsI/s400/pope+in+england.jpg)
Whoa! Check out this reaction to the papal visit from one English paper (citing another). This visit is becoming of such historical significance it is hard to keep up with all the firsts.
I am going to embolden some points:
How odd that it should be the Guardian that grasped the magnitude of what happened yesterday. Andrew Brown, religion editor of Comment is Free, and the possessor of an intellect as mighty and muddled as that of Rowan Williams, writes:
This was the end of the British Empire. In all the four centuries from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II, England has been defined as a Protestant nation. The Catholics were the Other; sometimes violent terrorists and rebels, sometimes merely dirty immigrants. The sense that this was a nation specially blessed by God arose from a deeply anti-Catholic reading of the Bible. Yet it was central to English self-understanding when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952 [sic], and swore to uphold the Protestant religion by law established.
For all of those 400 or so years it would have been unthinkable that a pope should stand in Westminster Hall and praise Sir Thomas More, who died to defend the popes sovereignty against the kings. Rebellion against the pope was the foundational act of English power. And now the power is gone, and perhaps the rebellion has gone, too.
This was indeed a day of unthinkable events. Many Protestants will have been disturbed to see Pope Benedict XVI in Westminster Hall praising St Thomas More (who incidentally died to defend what he saw as the sovereignty of God). I dont agree, however, that rebellion against the Pope was the foundational act of English power. Brown is a Left-wing agnostic whom one would expect to be suspicious of a national myth; but here we go again were told that England discovered its identity as a result of the Reformation. Actually, English industry and culture flourished under the spiritual patronage of Rome; if the country had remained Catholic, they would have continued to do so. (In Germany, cities that remained Catholic were as prosperous as those that become Protestant.)
Indeed, if you want evidence of the self-confidence of our Catholic national identity, look no further than Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall. For at least the first 500 years of its existence we cant be sure when it was founded the Abbey was obedient to Benedicts predecessors. So for the Pope to enter it today was an affirmation of its own foundational act. Not for nothing did he point out in his address that the church was dedicated to St Peter. Even Catholics who would never be so crude as to say the Abbey belongs to us, not to you sensed that history was being re-balanced in some way. They realised that the Pope had as much right to sit in that sanctuary as the Archbishop of Canterbury (who, to be fair, showed the Holy Father a degree of respect that implied that he, at least, recognises the spiritual primacy of the See of Peter even if he rejects some of its teachings).
Of course Im not denying that for centuries anti-Catholicism was central to English self-understanding, even if it took nearly a century of harrassment and persecution to suppress the old religion. And there are still pockets of intense hatred of Rome in English society today. The difference is that the only anti-Catholics with influence are secularists who arent interested enough in the papal claims even to find out what they are. (Im thinking of Peter Tatchells amazingly ignorant Channel 4 documentary.) They hate religion and they pick on Catholics because theyre the softest target. Protestant anti-Catholics, in contrast, dont have mates in the media or useful allies in the Church of England. All they can do is watch in horror as the Pope of Rome processes into the church where Protestant monarchs are crowned, declares unambigously that he is the successor of St Peter with responsibility for the unity of Christendom, and then walks out again to hearty applause.
To be honest, Im still not quite sure what to make of it all myself. Benedict XVIs speeches are worth reading several times; they often turn out to be more radical than they first appear. But one thing is for sure. Despite the unassuming courtesy of the Popes manner, he didnt give an inch.
TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; catholiclist; england; freformed; popebenedictxvi
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To: allmendream
...when the Bible says Zion they mean Staffordshire or some such... And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green
And was the holy lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark Satanic mills
- popular British hymn with lyrics by William Blake
41
posted on
09/22/2010 9:57:45 AM PDT
by
jjotto
("Ya could look it up!")
To: allmendream
David Koresh read the Bible and it said Jew he read Honkey and where it said Zion he read Waco Texas
Whoa and Seventh Day Adventist folks followed this nutjob?
42
posted on
09/23/2010 12:06:29 AM PDT
by
Cronos
(This Church is holy, the one Church, the true Church, the Catholic Church-St.Augustine)
To: onedoug
Sorry, just playing my speculative “what-if” history games! like What if Sargon of Akkad had created a lasting dynasty? Or what if the Persians had conquered Greece? Or What if Trajan had conquered Sassanid Persia and Khorastan and Arabia Felix — would Islam have been stamped out at it’s inception?
43
posted on
09/23/2010 12:08:15 AM PDT
by
Cronos
(This Church is holy, the one Church, the true Church, the Catholic Church-St.Augustine)
To: jjotto
Firstly — there are no such gravestones in Crimea. Secondly, the English are Saxons and Angles and Jutes — part of the Germanic branch of Aryans, not related to the Semites. The lost tribes either came back or melted into the populations of IRaq and IRan (where the Assyrian Empire was).
44
posted on
09/23/2010 12:15:02 AM PDT
by
Cronos
(This Church is holy, the one Church, the true Church, the Catholic Church-St.Augustine)
To: Salvation
I think the British Empire has been dead for quite some time.
45
posted on
09/23/2010 12:17:01 AM PDT
by
Enchante
("The great enemy of clear language is insincerity." -- George Orwell --)
To: Cronos
I think you are a long way gone from mainstream Seventh Day Adventist when, to lead the congregation, you have to change your name from Vernon Howell to “David Koresh”, to take the place of the LAST “David Koresh”, who changed his name to replace the one before......
46
posted on
09/23/2010 6:34:28 AM PDT
by
allmendream
(Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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