Papal visit is price of Liberal society.
I am not a “believer” (‘cept perhaps a misplaced faith that Plymouth Argyle will one day pay in the top flight) and in fact I describe my religion on Facebook as an “evangelical rationalist”. It is perfectly fair to say that I am an in principle secularist and I am frequently appalled by organised religion in general; and have recently been extremely appalled by the Roman Catholic church in particular.
The man who should be Pope
For my money the Churches role in covering up Child Abuse is disgraceful, the awful homophobic policies of the church outrageous, and this combined with the pronouncements on the use of condoms in Africa in respect of combating AIDS is almost criminal (one might say it is an unholy sin!).
But I must say I have been slightly concerned with some of the opinion from some of my colleagues the left and secularists who seem to be, in some quarters, suggesting that the Papal visit should not be allowed to happen.
I take another view; namely that the price of living in a Liberal, Democratic, Pluralist society is that you have to put up with things like Papal visits, and other foreign dignitaries. And however odious some of what they do is, providing they don’t break the law whilst here it is something we need to put up with.
Further, the same Liberal Pluralism that means we have to poke up with it, means that those opposed to the policies of the Holy See get to campaign against these and protest. In many respect this leads to a much better way to protest against the more egregious failings of the Church doctrine. These protests can lead to the showing of true colours like in this story.
It is vexing many people that the significant cost of security for the Papal visit is being met by the tax payer. I share these concerns, it is expensive and that is money that would be better spent elsewhere. But I do wonder what the credible alternative is. Realpolitik dictates that Britain will inevitably do business with diplomats and foreign dignitaries that we on the left find distasteful. And when this takes place, like it or not the British state is ultimately responsible for their safety whilst here.
And whatever I, and man lefties and secularists think of Catholicism, it is not some far flung country with little connection to the UK today. Millions of people in this country are Roman Catholics and the kinds of Liberal Society I want to live in can deal with accommodating this, even if I disagree with much of the creed of the religion.
