NAZI RATSY IS A PUFF DADDY! howled the front page of The Sun newspaper on the 19th of April 2005 when Dean of Cardinals and Primus Inter Pares Joseph Alois Ratzinger was elected Pope, and white smoke billowed out of the chimney above the Sistine Chapel. For those who do not understand the “joke” in the headline, the best idea would be never to read The Sun and to try to keep away from British humour altogether. Or you can write to me and I'll explain it.
POPES HAVE NEVER HAD A GOOD PRESS in Britain, something one could equally say about most overseas politicians who “talk foreign”, and if we add the fact that the current leader of all Catholics is German, then Pope Benedict XVI, the 265th Bishop of Rome and Sovereign of the Vatican City State, will need all the Teutonic thick skin he can muster inside his bullet-proof popemobile to keep from being upset by the big print bound to come his way later this week.
THE PREDOMINANTLY PROTESTANT PRESS has seen a bit of bubbling under of anti-Catholic sentiment of late; while this is not, perhaps, news, it is a surprising reaction from a world that generally manages to avoid religious feeling except when there is an opportunity to ridicule the Archbishop of Canterbury. The scandal of paedophilia in the Catholic Church does not even seem to be the major issue on the agenda by those who wish to protest against the first ever state visit by a Pope to Britain.
BUT WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM is suspicion of the old-fashioned Holy Apostolic Roman Catholic arrogance that is exuded every time a Pope comes over a little ex-cathedral. Despite the nice noises being made by the Pontiff, it is hard to put aside the fact that they are delivered in an accent that sounds like it comes out of the mouth of a Schutz-Staffel Commander in a bad Second World War movie. And no matter how learned and pious Benedict may be, the fact remains that in the wrong light he can look a little shifty.
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