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We should remember that Catholicism is *not* the state religion, that the Anglicans and Catholics have had a brutal history and that recently there has been controversy. This was the first Papal visit since the Reformation.

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.

The Pope's Parting Gift

This was the first Papal visit since the Reformation.

This is the first visit to Scotland. Pope John Paul II visited England in the summer of 1982 and I think that was the first time that any pope had ever been to the British Isles.