The Pope's visit to the UK #1

A small, but noteworthy, dispute is raging on the Guardian Unlimited website.

Last week a meeting apparently took place at Richmond Council's local library, supported by the 'Protest the Pope' campaign. The Guardian's 'Church Mouse' commentator has taken offence to its location and content, and Andrew Copson, of the British Humanist Association, has written an opinion piece defending the meeting and those at it.

Copson's defence is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/18/religion-catholicism-pope-protest. It links to 'Church Mouse' piece, which can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/16/pope-protest-richmond-council?showallcomments=true.

Needless to say that my theological and philosophical sympathies are not with Mr. Copson. Yet he seems to have had the benefit of actually being at the meeting, as opposed to 'Church Mouse', who relies on second-hand reports from the Telegraph. The linkage that 'Church Mouse' draws between the Richmond meeting and a Catholic group that has had to call the police over threats linked to the Pope's visit is clumsy at best.

Here debate over the Pope's visit should be divorced from the ongoing theological battle between Christian Apologists and New Atheists. The fact of the matter is that there are important reasons to hold the Catholic Church up to examination. The Church's reaction to the clerical abuse scandal has unearthed a culture where the survival and well-being of the Church has been placed too often above the teachings of Christ and the needs of individual believers, and that must stop. We cannot go forward, and reform Catholicism where it needs reformation, if at every point the dialogue between church hierarchy and secular society continuously descends into the same arguments of old (it is noticeable how many times 'Church Mouse' emphasises the role of the Richmond LGBT Forum as an organiser of that meeting). Just because these people are humanists and atheists does not necessarily mean that the views they are putting forth on these individual points aren't also correct.

As Christians we should be guided by prayer and by the Holy Spirit in seeking to help the Catholic Church overcome its difficulties. If we are to oppose opinions, they should be because they are contrary to our position as Christians, not because they are proposed by people who we object to.

At the same time though, can we try to have a papal visit that does not include large scale atheistic protest? The issues that Mr. Copson mentions in his piece are important; the fact of the matter is that people do disagree with the Catholic Church's position over African aid, homosexuality and women's rights. They have every right to do so, and should not be stopped doing so. The danger I feel is that we end up with two sides shouting at each other, but never really listening to one another. Let's put it another way: as mentioned, I disagree with Mr. Copson's theological beliefs entirely. That doesn't mean that I should automatically bar my ears to what he says, as he should not to what I might say to him.