Uncle Benny

[poliphilo]

The Foreign Office can grovel all it likes to the Pope, but that leaked memo-  which jokily suggested he might use his visit to Britain to launch an new range of condoms and bless a gay marriage-  accurately sums up what we think of him and his office.  And when I say "we" I suspect that includes a lot of British catholics too.  It's not that we hate him; we don't; it's more that we regard him with a kind of amused distaste.  He's our shuffling, exasperating, slightly unwholesome Uncle Benny. The FO has issued a grovelling apology, but you can't take back a thing like that. Hatred would be easier to deal with- hatred can be turned around-  but no-one ever recovers from the perception that they're funny.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I doubt if anyone hostile will get anywhere near the Pope on his visit. He'll be well guarded- and the British tax payer will be picking up the tab.

The abuse scandal means the Vatican has forfeited its moral authority. We could forgive it its reactionary views for as long as we believed its leaders were living by the rules they preached. Now that we know they weren't, we really don't want to hear from it again.