LONDON — The Pope is arriving in the UK imminently, on the first official visit by any Pope for at least 500 years —yes that’s correct, it was over 500 years ago since Henry 8th decimated the Catholic Church in England, and established the Protestant Church of England in its stead.
So one would expect a great deal to be made of this official visit (the previous Pope visited in 1982, but it was a Catholic event and not an “official” event). Well indeed, a great fuss is being made, but in a vicious wave of anti religious hysteria, generated by much of the press and TV. The Pope’s visit is being widely criticised on the grounds of child abuse, gay rights, women’s rights, the cost to the Treasury, etc. Even the Foreign Office officials tasked with planning the trip, were found to be so hostile that they apparently had to be replaced by another team. There appears to be no sense of History, or acknowledgement of how important the issue is to many Catholic British.Anyone would think it was the Devil visiting , rather than the Holy Father.
What fascinates me, is the similarity to the hysterical revulsion the “liberal” establishment have towards the Jewish State of Israel. It has been a moment of clarity for me. Clearly the Catholics and Jews are singled out for particular revulsion, because of their affiliation with religious beliefs. The Jews cannot, in post Holocaust Europe, still be attacked too directly, so Israel is a substitute target. As for the official Protestant Church of England, it is so weak and marginalised, that it appears to be irrelevant, despite in theory being the official state church. It is to be noted that Tony Blair converted from Church of England to Catholicism soon after he retired as Prime Minister.
Unfortunately, atheism has all but driven religious belief from our fair land. Yet oddly, there is one religion that is deferred to and pandered to above all others — that is Islam. Nobody criticises that religion in our media —why that is the case is, in my opinion, one of the great ironies and threats of our era.Ironic also that Britain took Christianity to Africa and the Indies, and now religion in UK is largely kept alive by the incoming immigrant populations.
Meanwhile, Britain sinks lower and lower into a morass of atheism, and paganism (worship of the gods of nature and the environment.) That is probably why the Pope has chosen to come here, Daniel into the Lions Den, so to speak.
It will be interesting to see how his visit develops.
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Levy is a freelance writer who divides his time between London and Eilat, Israel