On a global scale, Britain, the foremost Protestant nation through the rabid religiosity of the English and the Scots, mobilised its empire in aggressive opposition to papal power, while Catholic Ireland spawned its own spiritual diaspora by exporting generations of priests and people to the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
In the perspective of this fire and dungeon history, it is a stunning turnaround that Pope Benedict has selected ‘Protestant Britannia’ ahead of ‘Catholic Ireland’ for an official state visit next month.
Even more remarkably, Pope Benedict will meet his host, Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Anglican Church of England, in Edinburgh, the capital of Presbyterianism.
“The rabid religiosity of the English and the Scots” – and what universe, pray tell, does this writer live in?
> “The rabid religiosity of the English and the Scots†– and what universe, pray tell, does this writer live in?
Maybe a historircal one. More probably the writer just used the wrong word. He probably meant “The rabid sectarianism of the …”