On Friday afternoon I attended an address by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at Westminster Hall. I last attended such a ceremony when President Mandela addressed the combined Houses in 1996, some fourteen years ago, and sadly, because the acoustics were so appalling, few of us could hear what the South African leader was saying. Not so on Friday. We could hear every word the Pope delivered in his thoughtful and impressive speech.
As we waited for Pope Benedict to arrive, I studied the body language of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who were sitting next to each other in the front row. They put up a good performance for those of us seated in the body of the hall, but Cherie Blair, sitting on the other side of Tony, didn't leave us in any doubt how she felt. The one moment of amusement was Boris Johnson's late entry. Still, to be fair, if the Pope hadn't turned up, I have no doubt Boris would happily have stood in his place. The applause at the end of Pope Benedict's speech was loud and enthusiastic, and didn't stop until he had walked down the centre aisle, and out of Westminster Hall and into the late afternoon sunshine. Many people clearly wanted the Pontiff's visit to the UK to be a failure, but it was they who failed, as almost every newspaper this morning has acknowledged that the four day tour was a resounding success - not least because the 83 year old Pontiff displayed the energy of a man half his age. I am not a Roman Catholic, good old Church of England, but I am bound to say, bravo Papa.
As we waited for Pope Benedict to arrive, I studied the body language of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who were sitting next to each other in the front row. They put up a good performance for those of us seated in the body of the hall, but Cherie Blair, sitting on the other side of Tony, didn't leave us in any doubt how she felt. The one moment of amusement was Boris Johnson's late entry. Still, to be fair, if the Pope hadn't turned up, I have no doubt Boris would happily have stood in his place. The applause at the end of Pope Benedict's speech was loud and enthusiastic, and didn't stop until he had walked down the centre aisle, and out of Westminster Hall and into the late afternoon sunshine. Many people clearly wanted the Pontiff's visit to the UK to be a failure, but it was they who failed, as almost every newspaper this morning has acknowledged that the four day tour was a resounding success - not least because the 83 year old Pontiff displayed the energy of a man half his age. I am not a Roman Catholic, good old Church of England, but I am bound to say, bravo Papa.
3 Comments:
A beautiful post, Your Lordship.
(I enjoyed seeing Baroness Thatcher and Sir John Major, too.)
A single year in the Whitehouse seems to mark a U.S. president with obvious signs of stress-accelerated aging. Yet popes seem to grow happier and more light-hearted as they progress through their papacy.
I suspect both offices have the men serving in them praying daily. Curious the different affects
I pray for you once in while Lord A, and your comments about The Pope justify it.
I took my Gran to Rome in her wheelchair to see the last Pope, but, alas, my Gran's utterly true aside to The Supreme Pontiff was so outragously rude that it cannot, alas, be used here.
All the same, I'll try to demonstrate discretion when unpacking a memory mentioned to me by a British cardinal, who was attending a dinner with Pope John Paul 2, and who asked him about his reaction to one especially well-known firebrand who decided to protest the visit.
After barely a second, the Pope said, 'Well, we should love ALL of God's creatures'.
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