Feature Article

Benedict XVI to make historic first papal state visit to Britain

POPE BENEDICT XVI is coming to Britain next year, in what will be the first papal state visit to this country.
The news first emerged this week from a source close to the Prime Minister in New York, and early confirmation from the Holy See and the papal nuncio to Great Britain was expected.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols said: “We are encouraged and pleased at the news which has emerged about the possible official visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK next year.”

The visit is most likely to take place in September 2010 and will include a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Queen. The last papal visit, by Pope John Paul II in 1982, was a pastoral one due to complications around the Falklands War.

The visit reflects a growing warmth in relations between Britain and the Holy See. In the last six years there have been five visits from both Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tony Blair and another earlier this year from the Prince of Wales.

There have also been numerous invitations. When Mr Brown visited in February he issued an invitation for Pope Benedict to visit as did Tony Blair while he was Prime Minister. Archbishop Nichols has also invited the Pope and in 2006 Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O’Connor asked the Holy Father to consider visiting. 

Cardinal John Henry Newman, due to be beatified next year, will be part of the theme of the visit although it is not known whether the papal trip will coincide with his beatification. It is not the norm for a Pope to preside at beatification ceremonies, which are usually delegated to local bishops.

Pope Benedict has a well-documented admiration for Cardinal Newman, who will be the first Englishman who is not a martyr to be beatified since the Reformation.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor told The Tablet: “I’m naturally delighted that Benedict XVI is to visit England. He has been invited a number of times by myself and Archbishop Vincent Nichols and by the Prime Minister. It’ll be a great pleasure to all Catholics and fellow Christians and beyond, that he’ll pay [the first papal] visit since the visit of John Paul II.”

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, said that he hoped Scotland would be included in any papal visit. “I hope the Pope would revive us spiritually in our country … and draw us back to our basic moral standards,” he said.

Michael Walsh, the papal historian, said Pope John Paul II’s six-day tour of England, Wales and Scotland in 1982 was largely organised by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, who was general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales at the time. “If that’s anything to go by this should be similarly smoothly run,” he said.

The Pope’s visit will include an address to the House of Commons and House of Lords at Westminster Hall. This was the same spot where St Thomas More was tried and condemned in 1535 for refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy.

Earlier this year, in an interview with The Tablet, Gordon Brown indicated his desire for a papal visit, which should take place sooner rather than later. Margaret Thatcher did not meet Pope John Paul II in 1982, so whoever is prime minister at the time of the visit will be the first British premier to welcome a pope.

A Church of England spokesman said that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, would have a role in the visit. In 1982 Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Robert Runcie made the historic step of praying together in the nave at Canterbury Cathedral.

The news comes amid signs of strengthening ecumenical relations between the Catholic Church and the Church of England. Next month Archbishop Vincent Nichols is to conduct a blessing with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the altar of Westminster Abbey during a service of evensong in an historic gesture of ecumenism. It is unusual for Catholic and Anglican leaders to come together for a service at the abbey and is seen as a sign of improving relations. Archbishop Nichols was delighted to be welcomed at the abbey, saying:“Moments such as these remind us all how much is shared by the Church of England and the Catholic Church.”