How Popular Was the Pope's Visit?

[lil_shepherd]

I ask this because time and time again the Catholic church and the BBC refer to Ratzi's visit as 'highly successful' and 'very popular

Comments

[shewhomust]

Yes, absolutely! You have a good point, and you have evidence to support it.

I have a similar but more impressionistic reaction to the press coverage of the forthcoming royal wedding (it's going to cheer the nation up, apparently) and the location of the World Cup football (we're heartbroken).

Possibly they have evidence for this, but the reaction I hear is we really don't care (but we'd prefer not to foot the bill) and we are profoundly relieved (respectively). And this isn't just from friends who might be expected to share attitudes.

So, yes, seconding that demand for ecidence!

[lil_shepherd]

I'm glad other people are getting a day off for the Royal Wedding, but other than that I'm just relieved that William hasn't followed his father's example and married a naive virgin to get an heir while keeping his bit on the side.

As for the World Cup - well, let me explain what was said in this household when we heard London had won the Olympic bid.

-- Damn I was hoping for France.
-- At least we're not in Greater London and don't have to foot the bill.
-- And, with any luck we'll both be retired and have sold the house by 2012. (Still hoping.)

Deeply relieved about the World Cup too.

[shiv5468]

Well he wasn't shot so that counts as highly successful.

But yes, they dinnarv bang on about it. At least some of the viewing figures muct have been forced viewing because you couldn't get away from it if you tried.

[lil_shepherd]

One day they cancelled daytime quiz Pointless for the pope-athon. Oddly enough, Pointless is regularly in the BBC2 top thirty and, indeed, was that week.

[shiv5468]

You don't get that level of coverage of a visit from any other head of state. I agree there has to be some coverage because it's Important, but it's not like we'd won the Ashes or the World Cup. It's not That Important.

[lil_shepherd]

Not at all. I am simply asking that the BBC and the Catholic church produce some evidence that a visit that they themselves admitted was unpopular before Ratzi's arrival made people change their minds about it. There were several polls before the visit which said the Great British Public were almost totally indifferent to the visit (overwhelmingly - it was over 80%) but did not want to pay anything for said visit and were very annoyed about having to cough up for the security (originally estimated to be £10 million but later upped to about £20 million

[steamshovelmama]

"The Catholic Church has done some very nasty things, and continues to have some attitudes which even many Catholics know are misconceived, so the office comes with a great deal of historical baggage, but very few people (for example) blame Queen Elizabeth for the murder of the Princes in the Tower, or the massacre at Culloden."

Who's blaming them for historical offences? Condom use, especially in Africa, endemic child rape... there's enough shit attached to the current Catholic Church to bury any similar sized secular company.

[lil_shepherd]

Don't forget excommunicating people who perform necessary abortions, and taking Holocaust deniers back into the fold, while promulgating the lie that Hitler was a 'secularist' - someone who pretends to be a historian knows better, and someone who was in the Hitler Youth and manned an anti-aircraft gun for the Axis powers, and for whose "I was forced to do it and ran away as soon as possible" excuse we have no evidence except the word of, as proved above, a liar.