The visit of a Prince-Bishop
Peter Nichols
Rome T remember asking the Pope, on the out-
ward flight to Turkey in November 1979, when he was coming to Britain, and he replied, eyes steady with determination: 'I am ready'. He was not at all ready by com- parison with his determination now to make the journey which has had the fullest maturation in his mind of any of his travels.
Probably he did not distinguish it very much in his own mind from other visits he had made, or had in mind to undertake. And even when in August 1980 Cardinal Hume and Archbishop Worlock formally delivered the invitation, the impression he gave was of a somewhat vague interest in a distant province which was the opposite in religious terms of his own Poland. The Poles maintained their nationhood through the centuries by means of their Catholicism: British expansion was in part fed by the anti-Roman ethic.
A lot has been said during the prepara- tions for this visit about whether Britain is essentially Protestant or still fundamentally Catholic. The case for the continued Catholic heritage is made well by Michael Richards in the collection of his writings The Church 2001, which sets out to disprove the conventional reading of British history as successful because of its anti- Roman bent.
Even if one accepts Father Richards's view, the Catholicism he is talking about is a completely different one from what the Pope will have known in Poland or, for that matter, anywhere else on the many journeys he has made so far. West Ger- many was probably the nearest equivalent, nearer than the United States; but the historical background in Britain, combined with the atmosphere created by the war of the Falkland Islands, gives a dimension to the British project that was lacking in the other journeys. John Paul II is sensitive to challenge in a way quite different from his irritation with criticism.
At the beginning, the challenge was something he would easily take in his stride. Paisley and friends can hardly have shocked the Pope, and he is the last person to withdraw in the face of opposition. The true extent of his ecumenical aspirations re- mains a mystery. A strong and popular Pope is likely to feel less inclined to make concessions than an uncertain Pope. Yet he singled out two reasons why he wanted to go ahead with the British visit in the full face of the Falklands crisis: the first was to visit British Catholics who were waiting for him with such enthusiasm and, secondly, he accepted its ecumenical importance.
Without any doubt, both these reasons were reinforced, not diminished, by the fighting in the South Atlantic. And this is probably the way his mind worked as he looked at these two aspects of the visit against the background of growing pressure from his closest advisers to cancel it. Karol Wojtyla is never an easy man to assess in the sense that his mental processes are not like those of his recent predecessors. He looks like a good listener as he cups a hand around his ear and leans across his desk at the person who is giving him advice. But, so those who deal with him say, he will not take a lot of notice of what is being said unless it is original and put rather forcefullY.
On this occasion, the British bishops un- doubtedly put their case very effectively. A comparatively small but active Catholic community skilfully led in England by Car- dinal Hume had been preparing for months for this visit in just the way the Pope ap- proves of: prayer, an effort to get people back into the churches and enough organisational bravado to make this tenth of the population make its presence felt. In Italy, where the Pope is Primate as well as Bishop of Rome, John Paul II is constantly telling Catholics in a nominally Catholic country that they should be more in evidence in the nation's life. In terms of headlines alone, Catholics in Britain have shown through the preparatory stage of the visit that they handle an unusual pro- minence well.
From about the beginning of this Year: the Pope seemed to become more engrossed with the prospect of the British visit though without much to say about it, as if he was still not at home with the subject. The elements it raised were certainly different from what he had encountered earlier in his travels. It is an odd historical irony that every Archbishop of Canterbury since the last war has come to Rome to see the PoPe, yet it is probably true to say that throughout the centuries in which Arch- bishops of Canterbury were Catholic none came here to tell the Popes at first hand how the tiresome islanders were behaving. With this past, the idea that now there was a developing Catholic community would surely have struck this Pope as at- tractive. And one has the impression that it became all the more so, the more his ad- visers here pointed out that he should not think of visiting a country which was fighting, and not only fighting, but doing so against a Latin American country in a part of the world which, in the future must outweigh Europe's importance in sheer numbers. For the first time before making a journey the Pope had to decide two ques- tions: whether he should go, and if so, what the nature of his visit should be. Both are excellent questions for a Pope to have to face. And there should be no doubt that the pruning of the visit of its political aspects, such as meetings with Mrs That- cher and formal welcomes from ministers, was an improvement. The Pope's own thinking on how he should travel is, for all his talk of constant pilgrimages, guided as well by the attraction of political contacts. He comes, after all, from a central Euro- pean tradition of Prince-Bishops. His visit to Portugal, which came immediately before the British one, was officially a State visit: the British visit was never envisaged as such, but before the changes at the last mo- Ment there was little obvious difference to the ordinary person. Now that difference will be clear.
The Falklands, the now on, now off aspect of the visit, the more mundane pro- blems punctuating the arrangements, such as the time available to non-Catholics, and even to the Queen — all these aspects Of the visit meant that the chances of success, if it happened, were greatly enhanced. Over- coming difficulties naturally stimulates en- thusiasm. Finally, and probably this was crucial, many Anglicans as well as Catholics would see in this figure arriving on their shores, at a moment of internal tensions, a kind of pastor able to move in an at- mosphere embittered by conflict as easily as he could brush aside the obstacles of pro- tocol. There is increasing talk in Britain now, as Dr Runcie told the Pope, about the Bishop of Rome's claims to a special primacy beyond the Catholic world. And that is surely how John Paul II would hope to present himself to the British, whether Catholic or not.
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