Pope Benedict's Visit To The UK 2010

Pope Benedict XVI visit to the UK was hailed a tremendous success after hundreds of thousands of people turned out to see him in person.

Pope Benedict XVI visited Britain from 16th - 19th September, marking the first Papal visit to the UK for 28 years, when Pope John Paul II's 6 day UK in 1982 attracted huge crowds.

The Holy Father’s visit to Britain began in Edinburgh, where Queen Elizabeth II greeted the 83-year-old Pope before he rallied Britain's 6 million Catholics at open air masses and parades through the streets in his armored Mercedes, the "Popemobile".

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK culminated in the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, whose conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism cost him his job, his friends and his family. The move also resulted in suspicion from members of both religions until, to his great joy, Pope Leo XIII named him a Cardinal in his older years.

The Holy Father’s visit has center on the theme, "Cor ad Cor loquitur" ("Heart Speaks to Heart"), the theme John Henry Newman chose for his coat of arms in 1879 when he became a Cardinal.

Pope Benedict XVI warned Britain against "aggressive forms of secularism" in his first speech in the country.

The following was published in Time Magazine on 20th September, 1926:

Christianity in England

England brought her religious complexion out into the sunlight last week when the preliminary results of two questionnaires were announced. The ponderous "lower middle class," which historians delight in calling the backbone of the nation, voted 75% solidly for Christianity in the London Daily News poll. But the suave sophisticates, the dreamy litterateurs who read the Nation and Athenaeum (London weekly) leaned toward atheism, agnosticism.

Late returns on the Nation and Athenaeum's poll:

1) Do you believe in a personal God? Yes, 537; No, 736.

2) Do you believe in the divinity of Christ? Yes, 474; No, 819.

3) Do you believe in any form of Christianity? Yes, 666; No, 595.

4) Do you believe in personal immortality? Yes, 578; No, 646.

5) Do you regard the Bible inspired in a sense in which literature of your own country could not be said to be inspired? Yes, 377; No, 918.

In the London Daily News poll, which had thus far brought in 14,043 replies: 71% believe in a personal God, 72% in personal immortality, 75% in some form of Christianity, 63% regard the Bible as inspired, 71% voluntarily attend religious services regularly, although only 38% accept the Biblical story of creation as historical.

Said the Daily News editorially:

"These answers justify the belief that the creed of the ordinary middle-class Englishman is still what might be described as 'common sense' Christianity and has not yet been much affected by the spread of agnosticism."

See pictures of the Pope's visit to the UK.

Day 1



Day 2



Day 3



Day 4



Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass in the Catholic Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Westminster, central London,England.Sept. 18,2010



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