From the editor’s desk

A need for enthusiasm

Preparations for Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to Britain in September have evidently not been going as smoothly as they might. A lack of information and evidence of uncertainty about the itinerary, even 12 weeks before it starts, have fuelled speculation that the organisers risk the problems overwhelming them. Mgr Andrew Summersgill, visit coordinator on behalf of the Bishops’ Conferences of England and Wales and of Scotland, responded to these suggestions in an interview on the papal visit website by saying: “All I can do is to say that yes, we are on track with the planning, and as soon as all the complex elements are in place then we will be trying to give much more clarity than we’ve been able to.”

Understandable impatience was a sign of the enthusiasm the visit was generating, he explained.

So far this enthusiasm has not been breathless, neither among the general public nor the Catholic faithful. The good news is that the new coalition Government is as keen on the visit succeeding as the former Labour Government that issued the invitation, not least because there is an even greater overlap between the likely papal agenda and the Government’s agenda than would have been the case under Labour. The even better news is that Lord Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University and former Governor of Hong Kong, has been appointed by the Prime Minister as the visit’s overlord or “tsar”, at least on the state side. The most distinguished Catholic Tory statesman of his generation is not about to mastermind a fiasco.

Gordon Brown particularly respected the Vatican’s inter­national scope and influence, on matters ranging from global warming to African economic and social development. David Cameron has spotted that Catholic Social Teaching also emphasises the importance of a vigorous civil society, and of the state not trying to do everything. This chimes harmoniously with his “Big Society” mantra. But there is a limit to this tacit endorsement – a Government intent on cutting access to free school meals for poor children cannot then claim to be standing up for social justice. To be convincing among Catholics, government policy needs to display rather more of a “preferential option for the poor”. Maybe the Pope should say so.

At the heart of the visit are two events of exceptional significance: the papal address to both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall, and the beatification of John Henry Newman. The latter event has been slow to capture the ­imagination, not least because Newman, eminent Victorian though he was, has more appeal to intellectuals than to ­ordinary people. The English are not by and large enthralled by abstract ideas. They prefer their saints to be martyrs, the point being easier to grasp. The Westminster Hall occasion is a challenge to Pope Benedict to unpack some of the teaching he developed in his latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which was widely acknowledged to be a masterful analysis of where Western societies – and their economies – had gone wrong. Global financial capitalism badly needs a papal scolding, and London is one of its two world centres.

What is lacking so far is any attempt to sell the visit to ­ordinary Catholics, to translate easy words like “historic” and “momentous” into a reality they can relate to. That is the task for the next three months. It is not impossible and it is not too late to start, but before long, it will be.