Pope Benedict and the Archbishop of Canterbury

Tuesday, 17th February 2009
By Paul Richardson

Does Pope Benedict care about the impact he makes? The pontiff seems to have a gift for causing controversy. In 2006 he upset Muslims with his Regensberg address. The following year he aroused ill feelings in Latin America with comments about missionaries not imposing foreign culture on the continent’s indigenous people.

Jews have been incensed first by the return of the prayers for their conversion in the old Latin mass and then by the lifting of excommunication on the Holocaust denier, Richard Williamson. As if this wasn’t enough, the Williamson affair was quickly followed by appointment of a bishop who thinks hurricane Katrina was a punishment for vice. A number of explanations have been offered for the Pope’s actions. The American Catholic commentator, John Allen, blames the Vatican for not having a communications strategy. The lifting of the excommunication on the four traditionalist bishops had nothing to do with the Pope’s policy towards Jews but if the Vatican communications office had been on the ball it would have seen trouble ahead and called a press conference to explain what was going on.
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