Pope to Brave Persecution in UK
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By Fr John Flynn, LC
As the date for Benedict XVI’s mid-September trip to Scotland and England draws closer, the anti-religious hostility is becoming more intense.
Peter Tatchell, a well-known critic of the Catholic Church, penned an opinion article published Aug. 13 in the Independent newspaper. “Most Catholics oppose many of his teachings,” he claimed in regard to the Pope.
In his role as a spokesperson for the Protest the Pope Campaign, Tatchell then went on with a long laundry-list of Church teachings, which he described as harsh and extreme.
Tatchell has also been chosen by the television station Channel 4 to front a 60-minute program on the Pope, which will be broadcast around the time of the papal visit, the Telegraph newspaper reported on June 4.
It won't be the only television special critical of the Catholic Church. The BBC is working on an hour-long documentary on the clerical abuse scandals, the Guardian newspaper reported Aug. 3.
Along with the unsurprising opposition to the visit from the Orange Order of Ireland and Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, the British government also got caught up in an embarrassing instance of anti-Catholic prejudice.
The Foreign Office had to issue an official apology after a government paper on the visit became public, the Sunday Times reported on April 25. A document that was part of a briefing packet sent to government officials suggested that the Pope should sack “dodgy bishops," apologize for the Spanish Armada, and open an abortion clinic.
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