A Pope on British Soil

By Richard N. Ostling

In a mission of unity and peace, John Paul II preaches to a nation at war

It began in a morning of pomp and smiles, not just another page in Vatican travelogues but an undeniably special moment in history. Winding through London's Westminster Cathedral came a procession of robes crimson and scarlet, gold-embroidered, black and white, with plumed hats and swords of the old English orders strutting into this unexpected tapestry of medieval drama. At the heart of the panoply, and at the heart of the substance of the opening of this six-day event, was the red-robed figure of John Paul II, the Pope of love, controversy and ecumenical vision. Sitting on the cathedral's high-backed throne, with high-ranking British clergy standing beneath and beside, was the Pope of Rome, whose claims to authority covered both heaven and earth. Yet this was a down-to-earth Roman Pontiff, who had gamely come to Britain in the face of a nasty South Atlantic war and a persistent antipapal spirit in the British Isles. Said John Paul, simply: "Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on British soil." With that, applause from the congregation of 3,000 rolled through the cathedral. "My deep desire," the Pope said, as the eyes of his audience welled with emotion and tears, "my ardent hope and prayer is that my visit may serve the cause of Christian unity."

His first words upon arrival at Gatwick Airport captured his extraordinary, characteristic boldness. "My visit is taking place at a time of tension and anxiety," he said, though not mentioning the Falkland Islands by name. He pointedly appealed for prayers for peace. But besides that ever fiercer war with Argentina, where he now plans to travel next week, John Paul spoke to the religious conflict of the centuries. For the Pope was visiting a nation that symbolizes, perhaps as no other, rebellion against the papal office.

Outside the neo-Byzantine cathedral, more than 5,000 people jammed Victoria Street. Typically, the Pope worked the barricades, reserving his warmest enthusiasm for children. Most onlookers were Catholics--England is only 10% Catholic--but Protestant Housewife Val Weatherbee remarked: "A man of peace in a land of war." Added another, "I'm not a Catholic, but I believe this is my only chance to see an authentic saint."

John Paul's charisma exuded its warmth in the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick at St. George's Cathedral later that afternoon. There, 4,000 ailing, disabled or dying parishioners watched in gratitude as the Pope personally administered the holy oil to many hands and foreheads of the seriously ill.

Later that day, during an address to the Catholic hierarchy of England and Wales, John Paul made a moving plea for peace, saying that he was in close union with the bishops of both Britain and Argentina. Said he: "Together, my brother bishops, we must proclaim that peace is possible."

But the Pope's principal mission, aside from a desire to end a war, was to establish the basis for a new religious peace between Anglicans and Catholics, who have been divided for four centuries. As thousands of people cheered outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, John Paul strode into the inner courtyard to meet another sovereign. Queen Elizabeth II, in a cheerily informal turquoise dress, was the Supreme Governour of the Church of England, John Paul the head of the Church of Rome; and both heads of state. It was a very private meeting--35 minutes in length, but of incalculable significance.

Saturday's service at the cradle of English Christendom, Canterbury Cathedral, was to be the emotional apex of the visit--and the most splendid ecumenical event of John Paul's reign. Greeted by Prince Charles and other dignitaries, the Pontiff took his place in a processional through the great West Door. Joining the symbolic march to the altar were Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Anglican primates, flown in from four other continents to participate. It was the first time any Pontiff was to worship in an Anglican cathedral.

The rite was symbolically linked to an almost forgotten age, when Britain had but one Catholic Church: the priceless Canterbury Gospels were ceremonially moved onto the altar. The volume had been presented by Pope Gregory I to Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, as he sent him to Christianize the eastern British Isles in A.D. 597.

The service was conducted near the very spot where the 12th century Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was slain by the Anglican King's men for his loyalty to Pope and church. The rite moved determinedly through history, even commemorating modern martyrs who died of religious persecution. And after this emotional service, John Paul and the other churchmen lunched, to talk of matters ecumenical and, one assumes, fraternal.

It was a bone-wearying agenda--with the 42nd revision in the schedule made practically as the Pope was en route to London on Friday. On Pentecost Sunday, he appeared before gatherings of British-Polish groups in south London, then went on to Coventry and Liverpool. Shrewdly, for Liverpool, the Pontiff planned visits to the cathedrals of both Anglican and Catholic communions. On Monday, after visiting Manchester and York, the Pope's schedule took him to Edinburgh. On Tuesday, his plans called for an ecumenical meeting with representatives of Scottish churches, then a quick series of appearances at events around Glasgow--all by means of a helicopter. The final stop that night was to be an informal evening chat with the Scottish Catholic hierarchy at George Gordon Cardinal Gray's residence in Glasgow. In the morning, John Paul and his retinue expected to fly to Wales for an open-air Mass at Pontcanna Fields, in Cardiff. They were to conclude their pastoral visit in a final airport ceremony at Cardiff before returning to Rome.

Without question, the Pope's trip had posed logistical and security challenges that dwarfed even last summer's royal wedding. Security preparations for his public appearances were the most elaborate that Britain had ever mounted. The police were clearly anticipating publicity-seeking demonstrations, and perhaps even ugly scuffles designed to embarrass the Pope and tarnish the ecumenical gloss of the visit. Most Britons support the Pope's trip, but Special Branch police were watchful of a faction of anti-Pope fanatics, especially in Liverpool and Glasgow. "We are expecting trouble," said one security spokesman.

The security forces were also preoccupied with the possibility of an assassination attempt by some demented person acting alone--a fear heightened by the shooting of John Paul last year in St. Peter's Square by a Turkish terrorist and the attempt on his life last month in Portugal by a bayonet-wielding dissident priest. The Pope's special $400,000 yellow-and-white security vehicles--dubbed the four Popemo-biles--contained engineering features originally developed to defend vehicles against Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland.

After all this planning, the decision to go was made just two weeks ago. The Falklands crisis passed over the Vatican like the materialization of some dreaded, unexpected schism, making for intense debate in the highest councils of the church. Before John Paul's dramatic Mass for peace at the Vatican the weekend before last, with both British and Argentine Cardinals concelebrating, the lines were well formed. Arrayed in favor from the start were the British bishops. Opposed were key members of the Curia--and, most notably, Archbishop Ubaldo Calabresi, the papal nuncio in Argentina. Backing Calabresi were the Pope's top aide, Secretary of State Agostino Cardinal Casaroli; Archbishop Achille Silvestrini, his "foreign minister," who had once favored the trip but turned against the idea when the battles began; and Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio, prefect of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. In a business-as-usual decision, such a power bloc would have won hands down. But this was an unusual situation, and John Paul is no rule-book Pontiff. Inside Vatican corridors, officials only half jokingly use the term the Panzer, for a Pope whose mind can be made up blitzkrieg-fast--and once made up, stay that way.

The British Catholic hierarchy was glum about the likelihood of a papal visit at a time of war, but a great deal was at stake. Very quickly, the British hierarchy launched a shuttle diplomacy effort designed to counteract the advice it knew the Pope was receiving from the ever cautious Curia. Archbishops Thomas Winning of Glasgow and Derek Worlock of Liverpool flew to Rome and at a hastily arranged luncheon in the Pope's private apartments, made a carefully prepared appeal, but it was soon clear that they were preaching to the converted. "I am convinced myself," the Pope said, according to one participant.

It would be necessary to underscore the church's desire for peace and its neutrality. The idea emerged of inviting to Rome Argentina's two Cardinals, Juan Carlos Aramburu of Buenos Aires and Raul Francisco Primatesta of Cordoba. Thus evolved the remarkable May 22 papal Mass at St. Peter's, with Argentine and British hierarchs exchanging the kiss of peace and jointly pleading for an end to bloodshed even as British troops launched their invasion. Suddenly the basic elements were in place. The Pope and the Britons could have their trip, but to convince Latin Americans that John Paul was not in the slightest siding with Britain, Argentina would get a papal visit this month--a prospect that just days ago had hardly entered anyone's mind. Later the dates were set for June 10-12.

Even though the risk remains of alienating many Roman Catholics in Latin America, where anti-British sentiment is rapidly growing, the Pope seems to recognize Christian ecumenism as a stronger historical force than the temporary disruption of divergent nationalistic frenzies.

Until now, the doctrinally conservative John Paul has not pursued Christian unity with the flair of his predecessors John XXIII and Paul VI. But he is concerned for his British flock, worshiping where Anglicanism is the official state religion, and seems intent on overcoming history's residue of emotional bitterness and theological division, as part of a long-term effort to move toward some kind of Christian unity. He simply would not have made the British trip if such thoughts were only marginal concerns.

The peripatetic John Paul II has so far made twelve trips, and three of them were in fact responsive to three great divisions in world Christianity. First, in 1979, came the memorable papal visit to Istanbul's Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I, spiritual head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which broke with Rome a millennium ago. In 1980 came Germany, heartland of the 1517 Lutheran schism. Now his trip to Britain evokes the 1534 breach with the Church of England, which ultimately produced the British-based Anglican Communion, an international body of 27 self-governing branches, including, in the U.S., the Episcopal Church. All of them are under the leadership of Archbishop of Canterbury Runcie.

Add these three groups--Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican--to the number of Roman Catholics, and the total is more than 1 billion souls, or three-fourths of the world's Christian population. For the past two decades, since the Second Vatican Council, the Holy See has been open to discussion about unity with all who wish to talk. But only these three groups are directly addressing actual reunification. They share with Rome a commitment to liturgical life and to the creeds that were formulated in the church's early centuries; they are the most "Catholic" of the non-Catholics. In fact, many Anglicans insist on the Catholic label for themselves. The three groups have also been talking bilaterally while talking with Rome.

The Vatican would like to achieve unity with the Eastern Orthodox Church before turning to Canterbury or the Lutherans. Says Orthodox Bishop Eirinaios of Crete: "I consider the unity of Christians a vital condition for peace on earth." John Paul no doubt agrees, and has declared that he wishes union between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches by the year 2000. But the process is agonizingly slow. The meeting of the Orthodox-Catholic joint commission this month in Munich will only be the second such discussion since the Council of Florence in 1439. The always suspicious Church of Greece is wary, and the Russian Orthodox Church would never be able to unite with Rome unless the Kremlin agreed. The prospects for that have hardly been enhanced by a Pontiff who is by birth Polish and by public announcement a supporter of the Solidarity union.

Against all these political and ecclesiastical realities stands one plain fact: these churches more and more need one another. Divisions that developed over the centuries appear hopelessly confusing and senseless to young Third World churches. And they make the Christian Gospel considerably less attractive to the growing number of skeptics in the West. Most fundamentally, the churches recognize the vision of Christian reunion in Jesus Christ's prayer for his followers before his Crucifixion: "That they may all be one ... so that the world may believe." This, says Archbishop Runcie, is "an imperative of the Gospel."

More than perhaps any of the other groups, the Anglican Church has viewed the prospect of reunion with Rome as a feasible transformation. The Anglican-Roman Catholic negotiations have thus moved most rapidly. Two months ago, delegates of Rome and Canterbury, representing twelve years of talks, released their final report and concluded that the old doctrinal feuds no longer provide grounds for continued division. In a joint declaration of astonishing unanimity, the delegates agreed that there is no reason in principle why Anglicans cannot unite with Catholics under the universal primacy of the Bishop of Rome. (The title of Pope was avoided.)

This document, though not solving all the problematic differences between the two churches, raised the prospect that ultimate reunification may be possible. If reunion could be achieved between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, the example would go far toward encouraging others to consider reunion possible in their cases as well.

But the scarred sectarian history of Britain is enough to give pause to the most optimistic ecumenist. Though broad spiritual and nationalistic currents were at work, the actual split between Rome and Canterbury began with the ambitions of King Henry VIII. In 1527 he sought to have his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled so that he could wed Anne Boleyn. This was more a matter of state than of lust--though he had plenty of that too. Henry wanted a male heir to consolidate his realm, not just another sexual partner (mistresses were commonplace among Roman Catholic monarchs throughout Europe). But Henry VIII's desire ran counter to the authority of Pope Clement VII, who flatly refused an annulment for a number of reasons--including his political subservience to Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Even today, judges of the Sacred Roman Rota, which rules on marriage cases, boast that the church gave away a kingdom rather than compromise its principles.

Henry finally took matters into his own hands by making the bishops recognize his legal authority over the church in England and securing the appointment of Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry married Anne, and Cranmer declared his marriage to Catherine null and void. In 1534 Parliament made the schism final by declaring the King to be temporal head of an independent Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury became his chief spiritual minister.

While Henry VIII sought to keep Catholic dogma intact, persecuting Lutherans as energetically as he did the handful of bishops and large number of priests who remained loyal to Rome, he did authorize an English translation of the Bible, the forerunner of the King James version. The Catholic hierarchy had permitted only the Latin Scriptures. The English Bible helped foster at the parish level the Protestant conviction that Christians should draw their beliefs directly from the Bible rather than from papal edicts.

After Henry's death, the church veered in a distinctly Protestant direction. Archbishop Cranmer felicitously supplanted Rome's Latin liturgy with the Book of Common Prayer in English. Then the Catholic Queen "Bloody Mary" sought to force England back under the Pope. Archbishop Cranmer was one of 300 Anglican "heretics" who were burned at the stake during her reign, which is the inspiration for much of today's lingering "No Popery!" hysteria. In 1559 the policies of Queen Elizabeth I gave shape to the Church of England as it is today. It remained largely Catholic in ritual and tradition, and Elizabeth's persecution of Catholics was, by 16th century standards, mild.

Then came the papacy of Pius V. Subsequently elevated to Roman Catholic sainthood, he made what seems in retrospect a monumental blunder. Pius not only excommunicated Elizabeth but ordered her subjects to deny her their allegiance. This was clearly a political bid by Rome to destroy the English Crown, and it had the effect of converting Catholics, whether they liked it or not, into a species of political subversives. At the time, England was under grave military threat from Roman Catholic Spain.

All this emotionally rife history is still well taught in British schools. "The English think that the most important event of the Elizabethan age," explains Anglican Historian Henry Chadwick, who is also an adviser to Archbishop Runcie, "was the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, when the King of Spain sent a fleet to conquer the English ships and to invade and impose Roman Catholicism on the people. When people say the Pope ought not to come, they are saying that something like the Spanish Armada is on our doorstep again. They have a notion that one last ship was left behind and is now arriving."

A flurry of English penal laws forbade Catholic priests and Masses, and barred the Catholic laity from voting for Parliament or holding offices of public trust. Only in the early 19th century did the laity, against the wishes of the Catholic hierarchy, work out a formula that combined political loyalty to the Crown with spiritual loyalty to the Pope. Though the Vatican never withdrew its anathema against the Crown, this year's diplomatic recognition relegates it to history's dustbin. Catholics regained full citizenship rights in 1829, the English hierarchy was re-established in 1850, and devout Catholics were allowed to graduate from Oxford and Cambridge by 1871. In this historical context, British Catholics were as suspicious of Anglicans (not just in persecuted Ireland but throughout the British Isles) as Anglicans were of Rome.

In the 20th century, British Catholic pressure on the Vatican helped persuade the papacy at one point to outlaw even contacts with non-Catholics as undermining the concept of the One True Church. But in 1958 Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, the Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope John XXIII after the death of the doctrinally stern Pius XII, and a new mood about Christian unity took hold. Two years later, John established the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity to further ecumenism among all Christian groups. And the Second Vatican Council, called into session by Pope John XXIII in 1962, began to issue decrees that moved the Catholic Church closer to an ecumenical spirit. "There was a man sent from God," said Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, quoting the New Testament, "and his name was John."

Vatican II extended partial recognition to non-Catholic churches, called for discussions on reunion, and eliminated the idea that Catholic belief should ideally be mandated, or at least protected, by the power of the state. It was especially this removal of church political claims that made feasible John Paul II's visit to Buckingham Palace.

Catholicism has managed to bypass or relieve many rancorous problems. Use of the Bible is far more widespread, and worship in common languages is the norm. While Rome still requires celibacy in the West, its Eastern rites retain their tradition of married priests. It has partially restored the practice that the laity may receive wine as well as bread during Communion, a point of sharp conflict in the 16th century. Other concessions flowed out of Vatican II, but a host of differences remains--including highly emotional issues, such as mixed marriages, divorce discipline, birth control, the rights of the laity and the official acceptance of abortion by some Anglicans and Lutherans. A grand four-sided reunion is likely to be frustrated by three overarching disputes:

Communion. To the casual eye, the four groups of Christians seem to hold roughly the same beliefs about the Eucharist. But the divisive, central question concerns belief in the "real presence" of Christ's body and blood in the Communion elements. In their talks with Vatican delegates, the Lutherans have affirmed the actual "presence of Christ's body and blood in, with and under bread and wine." The Anglican-Catholic unity commission jointly professes belief in Christ's "true presence, effectually signified by the bread and wine, which, in this mystery, become his body and blood." But last month the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a series of frosty "observations" on the all-important commission report, faulting the Anglicans for refusing to accept "transubstantiation." (This dogma means that while appearances remain the same, the words of consecration by a priest at Mass transform the entire substance of the bread and wine into Christ's literal body and blood.) However, Eastern Orthodoxy does not require any such formulation either, and Rome nevertheless recognizes its sacraments as "true."

The Priesthood. Catholics believe a priest must be ordained by a bishop historically tied to bishops who are linked all the way back to Peter and the Apostles: the apostolic succession. Anglicans have a special problem that the international dialogue must soon face directly. The reason: in 1896 Pope Leo XIII declared that Anglican orders are, and always have been, "absolutely null and utterly void," mainly because the 16th century ordination rite omitted the power of priests to offer a sacrifice of Christ in the Mass. Therefore Anglican Primate Runcie and other bishops are technically, in papal eyes, not ordained priests at all. (An added complication is Rome's insistence that women cannot be priests, while several Anglican churches, though not the Church of England, have ordained 400 women since 1971.)

Historians have sought ways around the dilemma, which would also apply even to the Lutherans, who lack bishops in historical succession in most of their churches. U.S. Catholic Bible Expert Raymond Brown contends that it is highly likely that in the early Christian period, churches with bishops recognized those without bishops on the basis of their apostolic beliefs, so that today's Pope could do the same. No such scheme is necessary with the Eastern Orthodox, whose priests and bishops Rome has always recognized as being in the apostolic succession.

The Papacy. In 1967 Pope Paul VI got to the heart of the matter: "The Pope, as we all know, is undoubtedly the gravest obstacle in the path of ecumenism." There are millions of Protestants--and not just in Britain--who staunchly oppose the very concept of the papal office. Even tolerant non-Catholics could not accept the papacy as it now operates. But there may be some basis in history for compromise. Before the llth century split, the Orthodox granted Rome's traditional primacy of honor within the entire church and its authority in settling disputes on appeal. In return, Rome conceded that the Ecumenical Patriarchate had jurisdiction over the Eastern churches.

The First Vatican Council of 1869-70 may have set back by several centuries the chances of restoring unity under Rome by proclaiming the Pope's personal infallibility--when he declares ex cathedra (from the throne) on a matter of faith and morals. It also insisted on the Pope's direct jurisdiction over each and every believer on earth. This was, perhaps, an improvement on the papal bull of 1302 that declared, "It is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff." The 1870 decree caused dissension even within the ranks of Catholic bishops, some of whom pointedly returned to their sees in the U.S. and Northern Europe before the council had concluded its business. These dogmas, admits a liberal in John Paul's Vatican, "have made our job immensely more difficult than it should have been." The power of speaking infallibly has made even the Popes wary, and it has been used explicitly only once since Vatican I, when Pius XII decreed in 1950 that the Virgin Mary, when she had finished her life on earth, was transported bodily into heaven. This proclamation created yet another difficulty for non-Catholic Christians. Despite the Second Vatican Council's emphasis on the "collegiality" of bishops in sharing authority with the Pope, it left papal powers substantially intact.

This spring's accord by Anglican and Catholic negotiators seeks to overcome these longstanding difficulties by the positive approach of examining how the single leader of a future reunited church might function. The Anglicans agreed that the Bishop of Rome could have jurisdiction to intervene in any part of the church under certain circumstances, and could issue infallible teachings on his own, with the proviso that they would later need to be received and recognized by the church. If anything, this accord was more unsettling for Anglicans than for the Vatican.

A key figure in this potential stale mate is Archbishop Runcie. He is probably willing to risk more for the sake of unity than any of his predecessors. In an exclusive interview with TIME, Runcie stuck to his view that "the Roman Catholic Church is overcentralized" but pointed to the usefulness of the papacy as "a focus for unity and affection" that was "given to Rome from the days of the early church." He believes Rome "can give a great deal to us in terms of doctrinal coherence." Runcie said that his central problem is this: "The idea [that] you have to go to Rome for ethical decisions, for doctrinal clarification, for liturgical permissions, for the appointments of leaders in different parts of the world, I find difficult, in fact impossible. We must come to some better understanding than that ... By Christian unity, I do not mean some kind of soft uniformity ... But it is not just a loose federation of people prepared to cooperate either. It is something deeper and more organic than that ... In the long term, [the best approach] may be a method of reconciling the churches by stages, so that the ministry and the sacraments are recognized--that will be a model of how unity might be achieved."

Perhaps underlying Runcie's long-term view for the future is a 1920s proposal by Belgium's Desire Cardinal Mercier that Anglicanism be "united, not absorbed." This would leave the Archbishop of Canterbury as patriarch of a group that would come under the papacy but retain control of its liturgy and canon law. Still, no sort of reunion--Runcie's flexibility aside--could occur without similar flexibility from Rome.

Nothing will happen, says one Vatican veteran, "until you get a Pope who is dead set on it." He adds: "Quite frankly, I do not think this Pope is that at all." Says another member of the Vatican staff:

"The Pope is so authoritarian that there is no possibility of unity with any other church in his lifetime." In the first encyclical of his reign, Pope John Paul II warned that "correct limits must be maintained" in the search for Christian unity, which "in no way [means] giving up or in any way diminishing the treasures of divine truth that the church has constantly confessed and taught." John Paul, with his well-publicized disciplinary policies regarding two progressive theologians, West Germany's Hans Kueng and the Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx of The Netherlands, has probably slowed down the forward momentum, in the eyes of non-Catholic liberals, at least. Says W.A. Visser 't Hooft, 81, co-founder of the World Council of Churches: "Let's face it. The Pope remains a theological conservative. There are great differences between his image and reality. In a way, KRAFT the church is still scared by its own courage at Vatican II."

Perhaps, but this papal administration may have a long-term idea for moving Christian unity forward. Vatican Secretary of State Casaroli told TIME, "There is no point in making agreements of unity at the top level if the people on both sides are not prepared for it." To this end, Cardinal Casaroli believes a papal visit to England can help ready the masses of Christians for further unity developments in years to come. Savvas Agouridis, professor of theology at the University of Athens, points out, "Trying to convert with pure theological argument is not possible. There are games theologians play. The deeper reason for the differences that still exist is that the two sides don't concern themselves with the essence of people's lives."

"The Pope isn't coming with unity plans up his sleeve," says Christopher Hill, Runcie's counsellor on foreign relations. "His short-term goal is simply to restore confidence and identity in the Roman Catholic Church." But Hill points to another reason for the trip: a heartfelt response to the contemporary need for spiritual unity in Christendom, which may be unprecedented. "We Christians need to see a personal figure of unity. We see the value of one man. A personal focus of communion. So we are beginning to see the point of a Pope for the worldwide Christian churches--just so long as their traditions are not swallowed up in Roman Catholic traditions." That possibility now seems less remote. With John Paul II on British soil, reunification suddenly seems more possible. --By Richard N. Ostling, reported by Mary Cronin/London and Wilton Wynn with the Pope

With reporting by Mary Cronin, Wilton Wynn

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