Posted on 09/16/2010 5:48:26 AM PDT by re_tail20
The hostility that many British are voicing toward Pope Benedict XVI has shocked church officials in Rome as they prepare for the first formal state visit to Great Britain by a reigning pontiff.
The four-day papal visit, which begins Thursday, has prompted negative reactions by far exceeding anything the Pope has encountered when traveling even to non-Christian countries such as Turkey or Israel.
The protests have ranged from the mean-spirited and the tasteless to the vehemently ideological. Some even called for the Pope's arrest upon his arrival in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Queen Elizabeth II is to greet him.
At the bottom of the scale, the cost of the visit — an estimated 10 million pounds (about 15.4 million U.S. dollars) to British taxpayers — has generated repeated complaints, although such protests are never heard when other heads of state come to Britain.
More seriously, a controversy arose in April after the leak of a joke memo that a junior Foreign Office official had written suggesting that the Pope should bless a gay marriage and open an abortion clinic as part of his official program.
The government offered an apology to the Holy See, but the prank betrayed the sort of ignorant contempt that passes for cleverness in the corridors of power in Britain.
The National Secular Society, an atheist lobby group, has submitted to the government a petition against the papal tour and will demonstrate against the pontiff during the visit. The group's opinions are quoted widely and even promoted in the British press whenever the papal visit is discussed. The society’s protests against Islam, by contrast, seem limited to campaigning against the ritual slaughter of animals.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Why be shocked? Britain is a post-Christian country.
Couldn’t part of this reaction be from the Vatican’s new policy of bringing in Anglican churches into the Catholic fold?
Church of ENGLAND
nuff said.
Britain hasn’t been a strong supporter of Catholicism for about ... uh ... 500 years.
..how many people in the poll were Muslims?
I sometimes realize that the consequences of atheism are justified.
Lets see how the Brits would greet a visit from an Imam. I’m betting they would present The Full Dhimmi.
British Catholics have paid billions in taxes over the years to support the official state church of Great Britain.
$15.4mm is less than a thousandth of a percent of what Her Majesty's government owes them.
Not to mention the billions of pounds of real estate that the British government illegally seized from the Catholic Church.
Let's say we get a pope from inner city Detroit, or the gay area of San Francisco (ok...anywhere in the city will do), or perhaps a pope from Australia, or maybe even a pope from Washington D.C.??? (oh....wait....he already thinks he IS the pope).
Anywhere....anybody but another one from somewhere in Europe.
Perhaps the UN General Assembly could take the place of the college of cardinals as far as electing a new pope goes!! Wouldn't that be fun??!!
I doubt it.
The liberal Anglican "Christians" who are protesting are happy to see the traditional Anglicans go.
The radical Muslims who are protesting could care less where any Christians go.
The radical "conservative" Protestants who are protesting could care less, because they despise the state church only slightly less than the Catholic Church.
The radical atheists who are protesting could care less because they want to dismantle the state church.
If the Pope were to visit a country lousy with Muslim fanatics, moral degenerates and aggressive atheists and get a warm welcome, it would mean he wasn't doing his job.
Uh, yeah, weren’t Catholics basically banned from voting or holding public office until well into the 1800s in the UK? They’ve had a long tradition of anti-Catholicism even before they were overrun by secular humanism and Islam.
They’d bend over backwards if, say, an Iranian ayatollah showed up. But the Pope? Nothing but snark and protests. I think it’s sad, and I’m a Protestant.
}:-)4
On the other hand - there are a LOT of people cheering the Pope in Scotland right this minute.
We shouldn’t focus on the looniest of the atheist left. They’re don’t represent Britain. They’re just the ones who get interviewed on the BBC.
Amen....We lived in London for a year and teh Churches were EMPTY, except for the Catholic ones......and in Paris the Catholic Churches were EMPTY!! They get what they deserve.
I don’t know whether Logic n’ Reason was jesting when he said anywhere but Europe, but seriously speaking the remaining bastions of the Catholic Church are in Africa and South America. This is both in terms of absolute numbers, as well as actual fervor. Not Europe.
3rd World.....you mean like the US? Mexico? Canada? Norway? Australia?
How's about a lady pope?? Wonder what name she'd choose?? And what about the title "pope"...would it then become "popette"? (as in: "popette hitlery I")??
I look for Africa or Latin America.
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