world'
Pope Benedict's spokesman insists Cardinal Walter Kaspar was dropped
from UK visit 'for health reasons'
John Hooper in Rome and Sam Jones
Thursday September 16 2010
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/popes-visit-aide-dropped
One of the pope's top advisers on his visit to England and Scotland
has dropped out of his entourage following the publication of an
interview in which he said that arriving in Britain "you sometimes
think you've landed in a third world country".
Benedict XVI's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, told the Guardian,
however, that Cardinal Walter Kasper had withdrawn "for health
reasons".
He said the 77-year-old prelate's absence from the papal party, which
lands in Edinburgh tomorrow at the start of a four-day visit, "had
absolutely nothing to do with anything else".
Kasper, the Vatican's leading expert on relations with the Church of
England, made his remark after noting that Britain was a "secular,
pluralistic" country.
Asked by the German news magazine, Focus, whether Christians were
discriminated against in Britain, he replied: "Yes. Above all, an
aggressive new atheism has spread through Britain. If, for example,
you wear a cross on British Airways, you are discriminated against."
His comment on the airline is bound to revive questions about why, in
a departure from the normal practice, the pope will not return to Rome
aboard a plane of the country he has visited, normally that country's
nationalised flag carrier.
At a briefing for correspondents last week, Father Lombardi said the
decision to fly there and back with the Italian airline, Alitalia, had
been taken for reasons of "simplicity".
He added: "In any case, British Airways is no longer state-owned".
Alitalia was itself, however, privatised two years ago.
In 2006, BA was embroiled in a bitter row after taking disciplinary
action against an employee who refused to cover up a necklace carrying
a cross which she wore on the outside of her uniform.
The last-minute withdrawal of the German cardinal has led to a flurry
of activity in the Vatican, because he was to have played a central
role in the ecumenical aspects of the pope's visit. Until July, Kasper
was the head of the department that deals with relations with other
Christian denominations, where he had worked since 1999.
His successor, a Swiss archbishop, Kurt Koch, speaks English, but he
is not as fluent as Kasper. He also has far less experience of dealing
with what Cardinal Kasper in his Focus interview called the "difficult
dialogue" with the Church of England.
This is not the first time he has experienced controversy. Last year,
after the pope lifted the excommunication of an ultra-traditional
British bishop who had questioned the extent of the Holocaust, Kasper
raised eyebrows in the Vatican with an outspoken interview in which he
criticised a lack of consultation and said there had been
"misunderstandings and management errors" in the papal bureaucracy.
Meanwhile in Britain, survivors of abuse within the Roman Catholic
church repeated their demand that the pope hand over all information
on abusive clergy.
They told a press conference in central London [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/pope-visit-catholic-abuse-justice"
title="] today that repeated apologies meant nothing and they wanted
"truth, justice and accountability".
Peter Saunders, a survivor of Catholic abuse who is now the chief
executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood
(Napac), said: "We need the pope to say, 'I will hand over all the
information I have about abusing priests wherever they are in the
world. I will hand it over to the authorities of the countries where
these people are being protected.'"
Earlier, more than 50 public figures signed a letter to the Guardian
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/harsh-judgments-on-pope-
religion" title="] arguing that the pope should not be given the
"honour" of a UK state visit.
The signatories, who included Stephen Fry, Terry Pratchett, Philip
Pullman and Richard Dawkins call for "Pope Ratzinger" to be stripped
of the right because of the Vatican's record on gay rights, abortion
and birth control.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
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