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Pope Sheds ‘Vatican Rottweiler’ Image on Britain Trip: Press
September 20, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI leaves Oscott College seminary in Birmingham, central England, on Sunday. Some sections of the British media hailed the visit as a success, while others said the trip achieved little. (Reuters Photo/Matt Cardy) Pope Benedict XVI leaves Oscott College seminary in Birmingham, central England, on Sunday. Some sections of the British media hailed the visit as a success, while others said the trip achieved little. (Reuters Photo/Matt Cardy)
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padt
12:29pm Sep 20, 2010

Anyone with an ounce of common sense would know that the media presentation of the Pope as God's 'Rotteiler' was a beat up. This man is arguably one of the most scholarly and humane people in Europe today. Anyone who takes the time to read what he has written, and listens to what he says - without the filter of the media and various so called - liberal - protest groups - will discover exactly what is alluded to in this article: The Pope is someone who has put his on the pulse of western civilzation - and who has 'dared' to remind us, in a pastoral way, that the West is dominated by vocal minorities who hate western history and culture and are bent on it's destruction - all in the name of so-called 'freedoms' and 'tolerance' aimed largely at silencing the Catholic Church.

As for the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church which is used as a convenient smoke screen by the media to avoid the real issues - hasn't anyone twigged to the fact that - completely unaccaptable as this scandal has been - we are dealing with event that took place 30 years ago and are by and large not happening now. And that THE person who, over the past 30 years, within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church who has done more to reform the processes whereby perpetrators of these crimes can be brought to full, accountable justice has been this man - Joseph Ratzinger. He is the one person who has attacked these abuses more forcibly than anyone. And he gets no credit for it.

The hysteria with which the press and various protest groups have flung muck at this man makes one wonder what really is their concern.

Seeking the truth is blatently not one of them.

It might be sobering for some people who think they have got all the answers to ask whether in fact it is not the Catholic Church that is out of step with reality, but it could might well be the other way around.

Because the Catholic Church, in the face of amazing pressure and opposition, still says things that are 'politically incorrect' - that doesn't automatically mean they are wrong. Bending to popular opinion is not automiatically an assurance that poular opinion is never misguided and frankly gets things wrong.

The problem today is that, in the west, people are so spiritually illiterate they find it almost impossible to understand Christian logic any more.

By the way - the average age of women who want to be priests in the catholic church is somewhere around 73.

All these Catholic protest groups are full of elderly disgruntled catholics from the 70's and 80's. Younger Catholics don't share their gripes and are not interested in their relativism. That is why Nededict XVI is so popular among young Catholics.

As for the other secular protest groups. We live in a democracy. They had their say in Britain. And they have a right to say it. Whether or not they checked their facts before they protested is another thing.

But, in the end, the people have spoken. They turned out in droves to see and hear this man. They didn't trun out in droves to join the protestors. Now I wonder why that is.


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London. British media on Monday hailed Pope Benedict XVI for shedding his distant and authoritarian image on his historic state visit, but cautioned the Catholic Church still faced challenges in the nation. 

The pontiff succeeded in presenting himself as a lovable, elderly figure -- a far cry from the “Rottweiler” image, they said.

“What the visit accomplished above all was to unify Catholics and humanise a pope who has so often been perceived as cold, aloof and authoritarian,” wrote Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet newspaper, a British Catholic weekly.

“The fabled Vatican ‘Rottweiler’ turned out to be a shy, warm and frail 83-year-old who perked up every time his security detail allowed him to greet people, especially youngsters and his own generation.”

Before the first ever state papal visit to Britain, Benedict had been viewed as a “remote Teutonic hardliner,” said the Times daily.

But he appeared in a different light entirely on the trip and remarks aimed at easing tensions between Anglicans and Catholics, such as on shared traditions and culture, played a great part in this transformation, it said.

“Ratzinger the rottweiler transformed into Benny the bunny,” enthused the paper, using the name of Benedict before he became pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. “We all want to cuddle up to him and get him to bless our babies.”

His four-day tour of mainly Anglican Britain, which took in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Birmingham, defied fears that it would be overshadowed by enormous protests or gaffes and the press in general regarded it as a success.

“This was a much more successful visit than the Roman Catholic hierarchy had dared to hope,” said the Daily Mail newspaper. “The crowds were larger than had been forecast, if not as big as they were when the charismatic Pope John Paul II came to this country 28 years ago.”

The Sun added: “The pontiff’s visit proved much more substantial than anticipated.”

Despite the widespread praise for the trip -- and astonishment that the pope had pulled off a visit here so smoothly -- some looked at the Catholic Church’s long-term relationship with Britain and saw problems ahead.

Pepinster fretted that the institution was not making conciliatory moves towards Catholics on the liberal wing of the Church.

“Gay Catholics and women will still be asking: ‘How does the Vatican and Pope Benedict see us and our role, not in society, but in the Church?,’” she wrote.

The Guardian daily said that Benedict had not managed to bring believers and atheists any closer together in a country that was increasingly secular. 

“The rapprochement required today is not so much between Protestant and Catholic as between the religious and the rest, and Benedict leaves without denting that divide,” it said. 

For most in Britain, the visit merely amounted to “an anachronistic curiosity.” 

“To connect his spiritual kingdom with the United Kingdom, the pope would have had to engage with modern realities, and the country would have had to listen,” it said. 

The Independent was more positive, suggesting that the visit may have at least brought Catholicism to the attention of a country that is for the large part uninterested in religion. “He may have left Britain just a little more broad-minded than he found it,” said the paper.


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