THE POPE'S VISIT

Here in England, I got caught up in the tail-end of the Pope's visit to the U.K., which finished last night. First, because a large part of Central London got cordoned off on Saturday, when I arrived, because of the open-air event in Hyde Park. Secondly, because he stayed at the Papal Nuncio's residence in Wimbledon, close to where I was staying. My friends have young children, who got very excited yesterday morning when the Pope flew off to Birmingham in a helicopter, which had landed for him in Wimbledon Park. The whole park was cordoned off by police, while around half a dozen helicopters put up a tremendous din before flying away with the Pope inside.

Judging from the visit, Britain's relationship with the head of the catholic church seems to have mellowed. Following the Reformation, catholics were at first persecuted, and then merely positively discriminated against. Modern attempts at reconciliation between Anglicanism and Catholicism then foundered on social matters such as contraception, the role of women in the church, and (most recently) sexual abuse by priests. In contrast to his Polish predecessor, who last visited in 1982, Pope Benedict was portrayed as a cold, hardline German out of touch with the modern world. Despite the fact that this was a State Visit (as opposed to the 1982 visit, which the Pope made in order to talk to his own flock), the omens were not good.

Yet it all seems to have gone rather well. Benedict made strong statements condemning sexual abuse by priests, and met some of the victims. He reminded anglicans of their shared, common Christian heritage. He stood up for proponents of faith - all faiths, catholic, anglican and muslim - against those striving for a secular, materialist world. His softly accented English charmed listeners. All in all, he came across as a benevolent grandfather rather than a teutonic bogeyman.

Nothing represented the change more than the service in Birmingham, which was held to beatify Cardinal Newman, the 19th century Oxford anglican theologian, who converted to catholicism and was made a cardinal. If this had happened in the 19th century, then it would have aroused widespread hostility, perhaps worse; today it all seems perfectly natural. In that sense, Britain has indeed moved on.

Walter Blotscher