The pope’s mission
We discuss if the pope’s visit can help create a more credible church in the UK’s increasingly secular society.
Pope Benedict XVI has begun a four-day visit to the UK, taking in an official reception with Queen Elizabeth II in Edinburgh, and masses in Glasgow, London and Birmingham.
It is the first visit to the UK by the Catholic pope since 1982, and it comes shadowed by the child abuse scandal and “outdated views on crucial issues”.
Can the visit help create a more credible church in an increasingly secular society like the UK? And what is the need for this visit, costing British tax payers $18mn?
Joining the programme are Riazat Butt, the religious affairs correspondent of the British newspaper The Guardian, Anna Arco, a reporter at the Catholic newspaper The Catholic Herald, and Michael Campbell, the editor of Young Freethought, a group supporting the ‘Protest the Pope’ movement.
This episode of Inside Story aired from Thursday, September 16, 2010.