The British government was forced to publicly apologize to Pope Benedict XVI over a “foolish” internal memo that suggested, among other things, that the pope launch his own line of condoms during a September visit to Britain.
The document, described as a product of a “blue skies thinking” session at the Foreign Office, suggested among other ideas that the pope might use the tour to launch a line of “Benedict” condoms, bless a gay marriage and sing a duet with Queen Elizabeth II.
The band of government civil servants who authored the paper also suggested Benedict apologize for the 16th-century Spanish armada that fought the English navy, and that he reverse his ban on women priests.
This memo is:
1- a stupid, juvenile joke that went too far, and
2- insight into how they really think about Catholics, even if it’s occasionally hidden by a polite/diplomatic facade.
Well, Chris (#1), the memo is indeed a stupid, juvenile joke, but let’s not assume that EVERYONE in the Foreign Office wiould have thought it funny. But it was indeed revealing. Not perhaps shocking in an aggressively secular, relativist place like the UK, but very revealing in a disturbing way nonetheless.
To this American, England may retain the outward appearance of an established church in a [i]de jure[/i] fashion, but it increasingly appears [i]de facto[/i] to have disestablished the CoE. What was once truly the Church of England is now merely, for all practical purposes, “the Church of a tiny minority of England.” And as I never tire of saying here (but others may well be tired of reading) that harsh, unpleasant reality calls for a radical rethinking of how we do church in a post-Constantinian, post-Christendom social setting.
David Handy+
(And I’m sorry if that is offensive to Pageantmaster or other British readers. No offense intended.)
Almost more striking to me is that the team in the foreign office in charge of planning the pope’s visit does not have even ONE Catholic. I have read that the Vatican is frustrated by the team because they have no clue about the Catholic Church – and as evidenced by this childish memo – seemed to have no interest in learning and working with the Vatican.
#2 Greetings Rev Handy!
No offense taken at all – please feel free to bang on about replacing the Church of England with something made up from all those long complicated words.
#4.. Could you explain how an economy of words would be better served by defining a term within the context of a given thought when one word would suffice. Perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all. Perhaps that is your point. FYI, there is a vulgar phrase common to many blogs which may express how you really feel. Ever see the following letters in response to an annoying or peeving comment or commentator? STFU. Now, as annoying as verbosity can be, and as peeving as the presumption in the use of big words can be, where does one find balance in the fine art of communication. Maybe what really frosts your cake is the man has an opinion on just about everything and takes pleasure in expressing it, whether or not anyone else is pleased.
#5 centexn – Not at all, I enjoy reading every word NRA has to say, and even enjoy on occasion having some banter with him. My cake is not frosted, really.
Apart from the fact that these comments are offensive to Catholics (which I suspect many in the current govt aren’t deeply troubled about as long as the necessary apologies were delivered) there is the issues of why a career diplomat (for so I believe him to be) in the FO can’t seem to separate puerile Southpark-type humor from professional standards.
RE: “Could you explain how an economy of words would be better served by defining a term within the context of a given thought when one word would suffice.”
Er. I believe that Pageantmaster — in an apparently over-nuanced and too subtle manner for some — was pointing out that he had no interest in the COE being replaced by a church of David Handy’s ideas.
To be honest, this kind of joking at the expense of the Catholic Church is no different than went on in the Anglican parish I once belonged to–to the kinds of conversations I heard at the CDSP when I was there or I can imagine that different from the kind of tittering that goes on in many Protestant settings. Mockery is the weapon of those who have no strong argument to make.
#8..
Thanks for your interpretation.
Ruth Gledhill has a link to the full memo it’s here, and it’s pretty damning:
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da9669e20133ed04efa6970b-popup
It is obvious that the writer spent a lot of time looking for offensive ideas – it can’t be dismissed as just a juvenile joke or similar to the kind of jokes that Protestant clergy tell amongst themselves.
After reading the full memo thanks to #11’s link, this sounds exactly like the results of a brainstorming session conducted under the mantra, “There are no stupid ideas.” In such a session you’re supposed to throw out any notion, no matter how ridiculous, and it gets written down.
Of course the next step, since there clearly are stupid ideas and any brainstorming session will generate more than a few of them, is you scrub the list to get rid of the most egregiously idiotic notions. And you do this before you let the list get out into the world as a list of “things we think would be keen.” That step, obviously, was skipped here. I mean, “Tax hats for [climate change]”? That’s an idea that should have stayed in the room.
The thing is, some of the ideas are unobjectionable. “Pope plants trees in UK” — one might well ask why in the UK, and why on the occasion of this particular visit, but I dare say the Pope likes trees as much as anyone. That’s an idea that could have been put on the table and even if it didn’t go anywhere, nobody would have taken exception to it.
As it is, the memo mixes plausible ideas like that with ones that are physically impossible (“Vatican to supply Rome/Europe with renewable energy”), or are obviously not within the Church’s power (“Increase Italy’s ODA commitments”), or are blatantly not going to happen because they are diametrically opposed to Catholic teaching (“Open an abortion ward”), or are just plain bizarre (“Duet with Queen for aid.”)
This is precisely why you don’t let people see the raw output of a brainstorming session.
Ross, I think you’re being too kind by half to the nitwits who drafted that “blue sky” memo.
Having grown up with a lot of RC friends, attended a Jesuit prep, and had the pleasure of working with a number of devout RC docs and nurses, it never fails to surprise me how much scarcely-concealed contempt and frank hatred there is for the Church of Rome. Especially, methinks, in the Anglican corner of the universe. One would think that the English would have gotten over the Spanish Armada, 500-odd years down the line; after all THEY won that conflict. Gee, did the memo-writers also consider re-enacting the Gunpowder Plot and the hanging, drawing, and quartering of the Papist plotters just to spice up the Pope’s visit?