From the editor’s desk

A friend, and even a guide

11 September 2010

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger chose his title of Benedict XVI upon his election as Pope in 2005, it was widely seen as imparting a distinctly European mission to his papacy. St Benedict is the patron saint of Europe, the cradle of the Catholic faith. But Benedict XVI is a highly complex man, and this is a highly complex mission – and modern secular Europe is a highly complex phenomenon. His critics seem to think they have to defend secular society from him; if they knew him better, they would see that he wants to defend secular society from itself. That makes him a potential ally. So he comes to Britain for an ­historic state visit next week as a friend, not an adversary.

Whether leaders of the secularist Protest the Pope movement who met Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark on Wednesday understood any of this remains to be seen. The Church would do well to remember, however, that in the candid words of John Courtney Murray SJ, principal architect of the Declaration on Religious Liberty of the Second Vatican Council, “the Church – that is, the hierarchy and the Holy See – did nothing to advance the struggle for the political rights of man in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” The Catholic Church’s secularist ­critics may feel they have grounds to be suspicious.

The themes of Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict’s encyclical published last year, are likely to lie behind many of his public addresses next week. The teaching document sought to unravel the tensions, contradictions and omissions that are beginning to threaten the success, sustainability and almost the survival of the modern European secular project. Even that project’s keenest advocates would admit it is not an experiment that is guaranteed success. Society is threatened with fragmentation not just between rival groups and interests but by an ideology of individualism, especially in the economic sphere. The overwhelming message of Caritas in Veritate is one of goodwill towards modern democratic society, a fervent wish for it to work better and free itself from its demons – demons, incidentally, that are as visible to secular commentators as they are to the Pope. The economic crisis that started with banking collapses in 2008, for instance, points to flaws not only in financial regulations but also in the whole ethos within which business is conducted. Caritas in Veritate contains one of the most eloquent pieces of analysis of this crisis that has appeared anywhere. That is testimony to the Pope’s desire to help society to work.

In a society like modern Britain, however, the Pope’s influence can rarely be direct. If Catholic teaching in favour of human dignity and the common good is ever to penetrate to the grass roots of British society, it will be largely through the agency of Catholic lay people and those who share their values. As The Tablet’s list of the 100 most influential lay Catholics, published in this edition, shows, they are well spread in British society and many are at the peak of their professions. These are not individuals the Pope can control.

One of the more unfortunate examples of negative aspects of the Catholic Church that critics of the Pope will have in mind is the persistent pattern of interference by church leaders in the democratic process, especially in the United States. The Catholic Church in Britain has the advantage of knowing that it can never succeed by force of numbers, nor by calling for blind obedience from Catholic politicians or electors, but only by the power of its argument – and among those needing to be persuaded are of course the Catholic laity themselves. Thus are the rays of the Magisterium filtered through the lens of the sensus fidelium before they can be brought to bear on the moral issues of the day. Thus the dialogue with secularism that the Pope wants to advance by his visit is already in being, and the local Church’s job afterwards will be to take it further. Pope Benedict will want to encourage Britain to work towards a healthier secular society; and Britain can begin to show the Pope how it might be done in practice.