The Globe and Mail, Friday, September 17, 2010 News A15

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World STEPHEN NORTHFIELD, FOREIGN EDITOR

A CONVERSATION GUIDE

War of words erupts in Britain on Pope’s visit

Benedict’s offensive against creeping British atheism met with barrage of rhetoric from Queen, intellectuals

BY DOUG SAUNDERS LONDON

A
s international controversies go, the
launch of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to
Britain Thursday seemed staid and un-
eventful: A relatively pomp-free descent from a
commercial jetliner into surprisingly uncrowd-
ed streets of Edinburgh; a series of short
speeches with the Queen, Scottish separatist
premier Alex Salmond and numerous church
dignitaries, and a quiet mass in Glasgow.
But beneath the surface was a war of words
backed with the sort of artillery power rarely
seen since the Reformation. The Queen, the
Pope, his prominent cardinal and a host of im-
portant British thinkers engaged in an intense
rhetorical sparring match Thursday, the goal of
which was to position themselves as the forces
of better good at a moment when church and
state are both in disrepute. Here, a guide to the
day’s pointed words and their deeper meanings.

Pilgrims fly flags as they wait for Pope Benedict

XVI to say mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow,
Scotland, Thursday. Pope Benedict arrived in
Britain, hoping to win over one of Europe’s most
secular countries. PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS

WHAT THEY SAID WHAT IT MEANT IMPLICATIONS

POPE BENEDICT XVI
In his Edinburgh speech before the Queen, he
warned against the “atheist extremism of the twen-
tieth century” which, he said, led to the horrors of
Nazism. Britain, he said, should “always maintain its
respect for those traditional values and cultural ex-
pressions that more aggressive forms of secularism
no longer value or even tolerate.” He argued that
Britain’s freedoms had a “Christian foundation.”
Pope Benedict is here in an effort to make peace
with the Church of England. He will be beatifying
Cardinal John Henry Newman, the nineteenth-centu-
ry writer who began the British tradition of convert-
ing from Anglicanism to Catholicism as an
expression of conservative politics. But his main tar-
get is resurgent atheism in one of the world’s most
secular countries. By equating Britain’s atheists with
Nazis, he turned up the rhetoric, and drew attention
away from the charge, that he had done nothing to
stop the mass rape of children by priests during his
years as the Vatican’s chief disciplinary officer.
This seemed to be part of an effort to move the
Roman Catholic Church’s response to the child-rape
epidemic from a defensive one to an offensive posi-
tion – one that was bolstered by the existence of an
organized anti-religious lobby in Britain. The image
of a church under siege from apostates is more ap-
pealing than one of rapist priests escaping criminal
charges. But shifting the “Nazi” slur from Benedict
and the church, with its troubled relationship with
fascism, to the atheist opposition is a risky move.

THE QUEEN
After praising the Pope’s predecessor, John Paul II,
for helping bring peace to Northern Ireland, the
Queen made her rhetorical point: “Your presence
here reminds us of our common Christian heritage
… religion has always been a crucial element in na-
tional identity and historical self-consciousness.”
And she stuck in a subtle barb: “Your Holiness, in re-
cent times you have said that religions can never
become vehicles of hatred. That never by invoking
the name of God can evil and violence be justified
…Today in this country we stand united in this con-
viction.”
Queen Elizabeth surprised many observers by en-
dorsing the Pope’s message so boldly. Of course
she, like the Pope, is both a head of state and the
leader of a religion (she is head of the Church of
England), and has an interest in connecting the two.
By making the self-justifying connection between
religious faith and national identity – a connection
that has not existed in reality for centuries – she,
like Pope Benedict, was able to shift attention away
from deeper questions of her own role in Britain.
She also managed to subtly condemn the child-rape
crisis without mentioning it explicitly.
It would be a gross historical understatement to say
that Britain has been poisoned by Catholic-Protes-
tant divisions over the past 500 years, and the
Queen’s predecessors have played key and some-
times bloody roles. Today, it is different: Britain ac-
tually has more Roman Catholic churchgoers than
Anglicans now, so the Queen has reason to want to
bring both denominations into her fold. But a higher
purpose seemed to be at work: Preserving the legiti-
macy of seemingly anachronistic unelected offices
through periods when they have fallen into ques-
tion.

CARDINAL WALTER KASPER

Cardinal Kasper, the Pope’s top official responsible
for relations with the Church of England, gave an in-
terview with Germany’s Focus Magazine this week
in which he described his views of multiracial, large-
ly nonreligious Britain: “England today is a secular-
ized, pluralistic country. When you land at Heathrow
Airport, you sometimes think you might have land-
ed in a Third World country.” He was not referring to
the airport’s lineups or its public washrooms. He al-
so spoke out against an “aggressive new atheism”
that “has spread in England,” citing British Airways’
policy forbidding flight crew from wearing religious
symbols.
Cardinal Kasper was immediately removed from the
Pope’s entourage on the British visit, despite his im-
portant role. His words created a storm of controver-
sy in Britain. Yet the Pope’s speech seemed to
repeat many of the sentiments he expressed: the
sense that there is now an organized atheist enemy,
the opposition to polyglot, multicultural society, the
opposition to the modernity of the past hundred
years, including the Second Vatican Council.
The Vatican announced Thursday afternoon that
Cardinal Kasper would not be apologizing. In fact,
spokesman Monsignor Oliver Lahl amplified his re-
marks: “All he was saying is that when you arrive in
Britain today it is like arriving in Islamabad, Mumbai
and Kinshasa all at the same time… Britain is no lon-
ger a mono-cultural country.” But the remarks
caused a storm of angry response from Britain’s
Catholic leaders – indicating that, on key cultural
matters, there is a deep schism between the Vati-
can’s conservative core and its operations in less re-
ligious countries.

STEPHEN FRY
Thursday the celebrated actor and Internet wit orga-
nized a group of 50 intellectuals and authors includ-
ing novelists Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman,
evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins and philoso-
pher A.C. Grayling in calling for the Pope’s trip not
to be recognized as a state visit. “We reject the mas-
querading of the Holy See as a state and the pope
as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to
amplify the international influence of the Vatican,”
they wrote. They cited the Pope’s opposition to con-
doms and birth control and his promotion of reli-
giously segregated education.
The British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson this week
published a lengthy legal brief, The Case of the
Pope (available as a Penguin paperback), which lays
out the case that the Pope should not be recognized
as a head of state because the Holy See, his Vatican
City “nation,” does not have the characteristics of a
real country and was created in an illegitimate deal
between the Vatican and fascist leader Benito Mus-
solini. While no British legal figure is likely to recog-
nize this case, it does indicate that there is a deep
vein of skepticism directed at Pope Benedict from
many corners of British society, exacerbated by his
questionable role in the child-rape scandal.
While nobody at the political level would dare
mention such arguments, it is telling that Prime Min-
ister David Cameron made a point of spending
Thursday in Brussels and is avoiding anything but a
private engagement with the Pope through much of
his visit. Even though the views of prominent atheis-
ts such as Mr. Fry are anathema to his Conservative
Party loyalists, it’s apparent that they express a suf-
ficiently prevalent British sentiment that Mr. Came-
ron does not see it in his interests to associate
himself with Pope Benedict any more than neces-
sary.

FRANCE

Sarkozy to keep dismantling illegal camps despite criticism of targeting Roma

BY RAF CASERT BRUSSELS
French President Nicolas Sarko-
zy upended a European Union
summit to defend his own na-
tion’s honour, vowing Thurs-
day to keep clearing out illegal
immigrant camps despite accu-
sations that France is being rac-
ist and unfairly targets Roma.
The summit was supposed to
be a forum for moulding a un-
ifying European foreign policy,
but it turned into a drama of
discord – with the outspoken
Mr. Sarkozy usurping the podi-
um to preach his policies and
lash out at his critics.
Mr. Sarkozy said comments
by EU Justice Commissioner Vi-
viane Reding that linked the
expulsions to the mass depor-
tations of the Second World
War were “disgusting.”
“I am head of the French
state. I cannot let my nation be
insulted,” Mr. Sarkozy told re-
porters.
The wartime comparison
stung many in France and oth-
er members of a bloc designed
to overcome and prevent the
kind of hostilities that divided
Europe in the past. France de-
ported some 76,000 Jews from
France to Nazi concentration
camps, and interned thousands
of Roma, sometimes called
Gypsies, in camps in France
during the war.
Mr. Sarkozy insisted France’s
expulsions of Roma are a mat-
ter of security and said France
doesn’t have to take lessons
from anyone, as long as it re-
spects human rights. He called
more than 100 Roma camps
dismantled in France in recent
weeks havens of crime and un-
dignified living conditions.
“We will continue to disman-
tle the illegal camps, whoever
is there,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “Eu-
rope cannot close its eyes to il-
legal camps.”
Participants at the summit
lunch said emotions flared be-
tween Mr. Sarkozy and Euro-
pean Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso over the
expulsions. Mr. Barroso did not
want to comment on his ex-
change with Mr. Sarkozy,
brushing off “useless rhetoric
or unnecessary controversies.”
“Let’s put this behind us, let’s
work now on substance,” he
said.
Mr. Sarkozy played down the
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
at an EU metting Thursday.
ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
exchange. “If there is someone
who keeps his calm, and ab-
stains from excessive com-
ments, it is surely me,” said the
French leader – who has a rep-
utation for having a volatile
temper.
Britain, so often at logger-
heads with France over all is-
sues European, backed Mr.
Sarkozy.
“Members of the Commission
have to choose their language
carefully as well,” said British
Prime Minister David Cameron,
a fellow member of the centre-
right. He added that “you
should, of course, have the
right to remove people from
your country if they are there
illegally.”
Ms. Reding’s office has said
she expressed regret over the
wartime comparison, but
maintained her threat to take
France to court for targeting an
ethnic group in the expulsions.
“All heads of state and gov-
ernment said it was profoundly
shocking that one would speak
in this way, with historical re-
ferences that were deeply hurt-
ful to the entirety of our
compatriots,” Mr. Sarkozy said.
“It is an insult, an injury, a
humiliation and an outrage,”
Mr. Sarkozy said, the kind of
comment rarely heard about
any of the EU’s top officials.
The expulsions of more than
1,000 Roma from France in re-
cent weeks, mainly to Romani-
a, have also highlighted
persistent divisions between
richer, older EU members and
poorer, newer ones.
Romanian President Traian
Basescu accused EU leaders of
“hypocrisy” over the Roma ex-
pulsions to his country.66 Associ-
ated Press