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The Queen welcomes the Pope to Britain this morning at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Her task is formal and constitutional, for this is the first state visit by a pope, and it must without exaggeration be called historic. But the task will be congenial for the Queen, too. She was the first British monarch to pay a state visit to the Vatican, in 1980. "We support the growing movement of unity between the Christian Churches throughout the world," she told Pope John Paul II then, as she invited him to visit her kingdom in 1982. There is no embarrassment here. The Queen is confident in her Christian belief and in her duty to uphold the Protestant religion to which she swore at her Coronation. She is equally confident of the loyalty of her Catholic subjects.
To the whole nation, the Pope's visit holds up a mirror. What kind of people are we? We like to think that we are tolerant. We defend the right of secularist critics to protest against the Pope, without violence. Yet Britain is no secular country. It has an established Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of All England, is as hopeful for the Christian benefits of the visit as is the Queen, the Supreme Governor of that Church. Dr Williams has far more in common with the Pope than a fondness for cats: their shared hope is in the Church's one foundation. True, numbers going to church here have taken a dip since 1982. But it is lazy to presume that materialist secularism inevitably replaces faith. As Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman in the Cabinet, said yesterday: "Our world is more religious than ever." She had Christianity, Islam and Judaism in mind, and her words echoed the Prime Minister's warm welcome to the Pope. More than materialism, he said, society "should be about shared values and working for the common good".
Related Articles Barack Obama 'too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown Gibraltar: a Rock of stability The economic crisis: signs of a recovery? The EU law on doctors' working hours must be changed to safeguard patient care A pragmatic Mr Cameron goes to Washington The time has come to recognise that university does not work for everyoneValues shared by Britain and the Holy See have made it possible for co-operation on matters such as climate change and development. Perhaps such items of common interest will figure in the Pope's address to Parliament at Westminster. But the eyes of the wider world will be on this visit too. From the United States to the Philippines, millions will see television coverage of the events of the next three days. It is important for our global influence that their impression of British hospitality in the best sense should be positive.
After all, the visit's theme is the motto of the great English writer and religious thinker John Henry Newman: heart speaks unto heart. For him, to be sure, this meant that the heart of the unseen God is discernible in the hearts of all mankind. But it meant too that one person's heartfelt belief speaks in the deepest conscience of those with differing beliefs. For Britons of all beliefs, the Pope's visit is a good thing.
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