In Depth Analysis: The key to the Pope's success in Great Britain

CatholicCulture.org ^ | September 21, 2010 | Phil Lawler

[Salvation]

**The Pope was making an astonishingly bold series of claims, really. He made them with disarming humility, so that his audiences did not take offense. Still the challenges were unmistakable. Now with the Pope back in Rome, a stunned British society has time to digest the papal message, to realize the implications of what he said, to sit up and think.**

More than that -- start evangelizing and coming back to the Church, converts, reverts, those who have been away from Confession for 40 years.......they will all come.

[Salvation]

Throughout the trip, Pope Benedict was quietly, humbly, but persistently staking a claim. He was not coming to Britain as a visitor from outside, hoping to be welcomed by the nation’s leaders. He was claiming, as St. Peter’s successor, to be the rightful moral leader of this old Christian society. He was inviting Britain to end its 400-year flirtation with Protestantism and reclaim its Catholic heritage. He was promising that a nation founded on the truths of the Catholic faith could be a prosperous, pluralistic, and successful modern society.

Discussion Ping!

[ichabod1]

He was not coming to Britain as a visitor from outside, hoping to be welcomed by the nation’s leaders. He was claiming, as St. Peter’s successor, to be the rightful moral leader of this old Christian society. He was inviting Britain to end its 400-year flirtation with Protestantism and reclaim its Catholic heritage.

Only a Saint could go to England and make that case and get away with it. Oh, how I love him.

[the invisib1e hand]

b4l (Bump for later).

[Gapplega]

Wonderful!

[MarkBsnr]

More than that -- start evangelizing and coming back to the Church, converts, reverts, those who have been away from Confession for 40 years.......they will all come.

If you build it (or show them that it is rebuilt), then they will come...

[Norman Bates]

Excellent article. It was nice to see the Holy Father celebrate Mass at Westminster Cathedral, as I had been there a few months earlier. The greeting by the youth outside the Cathedral was very hopeful, too.

[Norman Bates]

I’ll tell you what else I noticed. At Westminster Hall, when addressing the government and former prime ministers some woman who was speaking tried to bait him with the usual secular talk but he made her look small simply by not taking that line.

[stevem]

proclaiming truths that might not be welcomed by a secularized audience

I believe they ARE welcomed.

[Last Dakotan]

He was there to offer a choice - Catholism or Islam. Protestantism has failed.

If they do nothing - it will be Islam.

[J Edgar]

” .... Pope Benedict was quietly, humbly, but persistently staking a claim ... “

These are the same qualities that struck me when he visited USA. He is truly guided by the Holy Spirit, and has been send by God in a great shower of mercy and love for mankind. JMHO

Let's us pray that our British brethren return to the fold that offers eternal life.

[Salvation]

I don’t think they will make that mistake.

[Salvation]

**Let’s us pray that our British brethren return to the fold that offers eternal life. **

Amen and Amen and Amen, Alleluia!

I believe they will.

[Salvation]

Continue to Pray for Pope Benedict [Ecumenical]

[Cronos]

"Great Britain, clearly, is a nation searching for a sense of purpose. Once a great global empire, brimming over with a sense of moral righteousness, today the nation is uncertain about its own identity: uncertain what it means to be a British subject, or what are the fundamental principles on which British culture is founded. In religious affairs especially, the old establishment has broken down."

very well spoken -- in many parts of England, all the towns look alike with the same main street malls, shops etc., the charm has gone, the kids are like the worst characteristics of Americans (which is true only for the worst Americans) - dumb, dejected and undereducated and undermotivated.

[Cronos]

Wow! An England returned to being a stalwart support for Catholicism would be miraculous! But who would have thought 20 years ago that the Patriarch of Moscow would be blessing icons put on the gates to the Kremlin? Russia is returning to the One Apostolic Church (one could argue that communism was only a brief nightmare for it) and now Britain. Next, the daughter of the Church must be brought back!

[Cronos]

Go to Lewes, a town near Brighton in E. Sussex for Guy Fawkes day (Nov 14) — they burn an effigy of the Pope there as they have done for 400 years. But, if you ask any of those doing it if they go to Church — any church — the answer is no, they never step inside any religious institute except maybe for weddings and funerals. They are godless, but they know to hate. Why? They don’t know, but they do. These are not Christian Protestants we debate against, but godless Secularists who we fight against for THEIR souls.

[Cronos]

Westminister Cathedral is very Eastern Orthodox like in it's interior --- very lovely

[Cronos]

And two weeks ago, I went to a glorious Cerkiew in Praga: +Mary Magdalena





it is awe-inspiringly beautiful!

[Kolokotronis]

Great pictures! The iconography, you undoubtedly noticed, is quite “realistic. This is emblematic of late 19th / early 20th century Russian influence. One sees the same sort of iconography in Greece in churches from the same era. Here, especially in New England, the iconography from the immediate post WWI and into the 1920s era is very similar, much of which was written by one itinerant iconograher whose work shows up all over the place in Greek and Antiochian churches, like my own home parish.