From today till Wednesday, the Scotsman will be providing us lucky readers to some information and background to the Papal Visit. Today, in the first of the three parts, a comparison is drawn between the Scotland of 1982 when Pope John Paul II visited and the Scotland of today. A whole range of figures and diagrams showing various statistics are shown demonstrating that pretty much across the board every figure has fallen (except, perhaps notably, but I'm not going to comment on it, the average weekly donation in the Diocese of Paisley, which was taken as an indicator of the situation in the whole of Scotland). Alongside this, in tiny writing in the bottom corner, there are also figures from the Church of Scotland, for further comparison (because comparing is what we love to do, and it's easier for journalists to fill a page without saying much). In addition to this, we are told that membership of the Humanist Society of Scotland has risen 700 per cent.
Speaking of not saying much, it's not like we didn't know all this anyway, as it is rammed down our throats with relish at every opportunity. But then, to back this up, there are stories about Clare, a biology teacher who decided that the inability of a priest to explain something to her was one of the reasons why she stopped believing and John, a former priest who couldn't reconcile celibacy with his desire to marry and then felt abandoned by the Church. Finally, to warm the cockles of our hearts, we hear of Rachel, a yoof (relatively speaking - she is a little older than me, but the other two above are in their 50s and 60s) who was rather out of control in her teens. She had the enlightening experience of attending a World Youth Day, hoping to simply get a cheap holiday out of it, but this, couple with what I suspect was the real turning point for her, sitting in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, led to her conversion to the Lord. Excuse the cynical outlook, but for once I am impressed with the Scotsman for actually finding someone, and not only that but someone young, to show that the Faith is still alive in Scotland.
Let's see what's in store for us tomorrow... I can't wait.
Interesting -- it's good to hear a bit more of an "on the ground" view of the upcoming papal visit. Do you have a gut feeling about how it's going to go over in Scotland?
ReplyDeleteI think the organisation and the logistics of the event will be a greater problem than any protesting, ever there will be any of note at all. I'm attending the Mass at Bellahouston in Glasgow and so far it's changed from getting buses from one's own parish to getting a train from the station in Edinburgh - a station which happens to lie right in the centre where large areas will be blocked off. I think people will start to be more outspoken next week though, for example, the Channel 4 documentary "The Trouble with the Pope". I'll maybe write about that too.
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