Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Prophetic Words from a (sort of) Protestant Friend of Catholics

From the blog of Anglican priest Fr. John Hunwicke, published almost two months ago:

"Well, the news that the Pope is to visit Britain is hardly news, is it, and we still know absolutely nothing about the itinerary. A month or two ago, I speculated on what might happen if the Holy Father comes - as rumour had it he would to Oxford. . . .

"More speculations from me: the media are distinctly more overtly hostile now than they were during the last papal visit in 1982. For one thing, John Paul's lifetime opposition to varying forms of totalitarianism tended to restrain the secularists a little at a time when memories of Stalinism were a trifle fresher. No such considerations apply now. And they've got a real head of steam going. I don't suppose the Hitlerjugend question will be much good except for a few sneers and cartoons; unless the "investigative journalists" who are undoubtedly even now burrowing away can come up with something really new and dramatic in this field, to make very much of it would just cause yawns. But one possibility is that they will attempt to smear the Sovereign Pontiff by suggesting that he was involved in paedophile cover-ups. They might use their familiar weapons of suggestio falsi and suppressio veri by examining all the cases that might have passed over his desk, and then testing whether any of the characters involved might have crossed the pontiff's path in other contexts: so as to suggest that he protected a vast network of iffy cronies."

Read it all.

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