THE PRESS MONDAY, MAY 31, 1982. The Pope ill Britain

Press, 31 May 1982, Page 16

THE PRESS MONDAY, MAY 31, 1982. The Pope ill Britain

The visit of Pope John Paul to Britain has provided a striking example of the way in which history can play sudden, strange tricks in the affairs of men. The visit was planned as a pastoral visit to Britain’s Catholics and allowed to take on cautious overtones of being a healing gesture pointing towards an end to the 450 years of estrangement between the Roman and Anglican Churches. Before the Falklands crisis, the only political repercussions of the trip were expected to come from militant British Protestants to whom even the hint of such reconciliation is disasteful. Their anachronistic stand could have been entirely ignored, except as a measure of how intractable is the political problem of Northern Ireland. The Falklands crisis, however, put an altogether different political complexion on the Pope’s visit. It seemed for a time as if the crisis would lead to the'visit’s being postponed. In some quarters the feeling was strong that it would be inappropriate for the Pope to go to Britain speaking words of reconciliation •and peace in a country at war. The feeling was strong also that a visit in such circumstances would take on too compromisingly political overtones, damaging to the Catholic Church in Latin America where the visit would be

construed as support for Britain’s actions over the Falklands. The Pope averted this consequence by deciding to visit Argentina soon after visiting Britain.' To have cancelled. the visit to Britain would not, indeed, have been in character for a Pope who has shown a marked tendency to leap in boots and all rather than shrink back because a particular trip, or associating with particular people, might have political interpretation.

It is not necessary to deny that religion should be relevant to everyday life — including political life — to question the wisdom of this approach by the Pope. To “meddle,” however good his intentions, in a situation in which two implacable opponents have resisted every effort at diplomatic, mediation, may have the effect of merely emphasising his temporal impotence. It is ironical that the Pope cannot move without his actions or associations taking on political overtones while he is without significant political power. The danger for a Pope who insists on travelling so extensively to so many countries is that he will fritter away some of the Papacy’s moral authority for no discernible immediate results. A more careful assessment of the reaction to where he goes and with whom he associates, both within and outside the Catholic Church, might not go amiss.