Urbi et Orbi: Pope on the ropes

As the Easter Sunday Catholic faithful wait outside St Peter’s for Benedict XVI to deliver his tenth papal address, the Church itself has come under unprecedented attack and criticism. Numerous controversies have emerged about the protection of child-molesting priest in many countries including Germany, the US and Ireland with the Pope implicated in many of the scandals.

Although the Church has addressed some of the concerns, its preference is to adopt a siege mentality as the charges multiply. The Pope downplayed the charges as “petty gossip” while the Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano, has accused the media of a "clear and ignoble intent of trying to strike Benedict and his closest collaborators".

One of the Pope’s apologists, Vatican priest Raniero Cantalamessa noted Easter and Passover fell during the same week this year and said this led him to think of comparisons with the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence, and also because of this they are quick to recognise the recurring symptoms,” Cantalamessa said. “The use of stereotypes [and] the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.” However a US advocate for sexual abuse victims said the comparison was “breathtakingly callous and misguided.” David Clohessy said “men who deliberately and consistently hide child sex crime are in no way victims and to conflate public scrutiny with horrific violence is about as wrong as wrong can be.”

The public scrutiny into child sex crimes is becoming deeply uncomfortable for the Church and indeed for Benedict himself. In Germany, Father Peter Hullermann has become the focus of an expanding sexual-abuse scandal that has embroiled the Pope. Hullermann was a priest in northern Germany with an addiction to sexual abuse of children. He was transferred to Munich for therapy where Pope Paul VI had appointed Joseph Ratzinger as Archbishop in 1977. Ratzinger was copied in on a 1980 memo which said Hullermann would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. A German court eventually convicted Hullermann of further child abuse in 1986 but the church still took no action to stop him from working with children. The Archdiocese has acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made with Hullermann, but said it was the fault of people reporting to Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself.

In the US, the news is no better for the Pope. As the then leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1981-2005), he was also implicated in the scandal of the St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Lawrence C. Murphy worked at the school from 1950 to 1974 initially as chaplain and later as director. Murphy admitted he sexually abused deaf boys for 22 years. Victims tried for more than three decades to bring him to justice, but recent documents show Ratzinger’s office neither defrocked him nor referred him for prosecution but instead encouraged “pastoral action” to resolve the problem. In the end Murphy solved the problem for the Vatican by conveniently dying before the trial could proceed.

In Ireland too, sex scandals have left the reputation of the Church in tatters (though it hasn’t stopped them from trying to enforce Good Friday alcohol bans). There have been three official Irish state-sanctioned investigations into the Church’s abuse of children. The most recent and most comprehensive, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse released its damning report last year which found widespread physical and emotional abuse were a feature of outdated Catholic-run institutions and sex abuse was endemic, particularly at boy’s institutions and known to Church authorities.

Sexual offenders were usually transferred elsewhere where they were free to continue abusing other children. The Church relied on a culture of secrecy, a compliant Education department and a fear of retribution to keep matters quiet. While the Pope has recently blasted the Irish bishops for “grave errors of judgement”, his apology did not address the Vatican's own role nor did it endorse the report finding that the church leadership was to blame for the scale and longevity of abuse heaped on Irish children throughout the 20th century.

That would have been a step too far for the Vatican as it would mean having to confront its own rulebook. The Catholic Church’s unnatural insistence on celibacy for its priests has contributed greatly to the problems in the US, Germany, Ireland and elsewhere. It is hardly surprising that men without sexual access to women looked for gratification elsewhere, particularly among young and vulnerable people without the access or knowledge about how to complain about their treatment. And while the Church professes to be pro-life, care for its flock seems to stop at birth. The Church continues to see sexual offence as a risk only in terms of the potential for scandal and bad publicity. The danger to children has never been taken into account. This obsessive, cynical and secretive accretion of power at all costs is now coming back to bite the Church badly.

Brisbane archbishop sacks rebel St Mary's priest

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane John Bathersby has sacked a rebel priest from his unconventional inner suburban church. The priest, Father Peter Kennedy of St Mary's parish in South Brisbane, read out a letter (see full text of letter at the bottom of this post) from the archbishop after 9am Mass this morning which announced that Bathersby will terminate Kennedy's employment on Saturday 21 February unless he resigns beforehand. The bishop questioned the validity of baptisms at the church and attacked the priest’s “instant disclosure” of his letters to the media. To audible groans from the packed congregation, the letter went on to state that he had appointed St Stephen's Cathedral's Dean Ken Howell as interim administrator of St Mary’s Church. The bishop said he would also facilitate Kennedy’s retirement if he so desired, to which the priest responded “I’m too young to retire!”.

The confrontation between the church hierarchy and the parish of St Mary’s has been building over a number of years. The church is known for its commitment to social justice and support of minority groups and its unconventional practices have attracted large congregations. However some conservative Catholics in the area were unhappy with changes to the liturgy, and some non-Catholic artwork in the church. In particular there was furore after a church baptism was loaded onto Youtube causing one Catholic commentator to doubt the baptisms’ validity as they did not follow conventional liturgy.

One disgruntled parishioner took his complaints first to the bishop and then directly to the Vatican. In August 2008 Bathersby delivered an ultimatum to toe the church line or risk being shut down. He said the parish was operating outside practices and policies acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church. He said St Mary’s had “established its own brand of religion” .

Kennedy continued to conduct Masses his way in defiance of the bishop’s orders. He wrote a letter to Bathersby in November stating that parish was in communion with the Catholic Church. The Bishop responded on 22 December saying the parish had not “adequately given proof” of communion and listed five issues it wanted Kennedy to address. It wanted a return to traditional baptismal rites, an end to congregational proclamation of the Eucharist liturgy and a return to traditional priestly vestments, the prevention of sale of a book which doubted Jesus’ divinity, and the instruction of “Trinitarian theology.”

The whole tone of the complaints raised by Bathersby show how completely out of touch the hierarchy is. Today’s packed out Mass at St Mary’s was probably the best attended Catholic rite in Brisbane (even accounting for the media attention about the possible closure). It connects with its people in a way dry divinity and Trinitarian theology simply cannot. The theme of the Mass today was “From little things, big things grow", the Paul Kelly / Kev Carmody protest song about how the Wave Hill Gurindji Strike and its leader Vincent Lingiari sparked off the Aboriginal land right’s movement. The church elders will now be considering how to re-affirm their own land rights in the face of the opposition of Church hierarchy.

The choice of song also shows how deeply embedded the Church is with the local Aboriginal community. Aboriginal activist Sam Watson was instrumental in negotiating a Treaty between the parish and local Aboriginal people last November. This morning Watson also read the welcome to Country at this morning’s Mass and called the church a “very special and sacred place”.

The message would not have been lost on the congregation or the media pack who were there to film the service. Kennedy’s reading from the gospel, Mark 1:29-39 was also appropriate. It did seem today that “the whole city was gathered around the door” of St Mary’s. Yet the future of this thriving parish is very uncertain after the revelation of Bathersby’s menacing and uncompromising letter. What is certain is the desire of the parish to fight the decision. Kennedy's only immediate advice was to "stand strong".

Text of Letter from Bathersby to Kennedy:

Dear Peter,

Thank You for your letter of 12 January with its invitation to further discuss the situation of St Mary’s South Brisbane. I see no reason to do so. I have repeatedly asked for changes but you and the community have not budged an inch. Moreover, South Brisbane’s instant disclosure of my letters and comments in the media give me no reason to enter into discussion. By all means consult the people of St Mary’s as you wish but ultimately you yourself are the shepherd and leader of its decisions. Time and time again I have spelt out a request for changes at St Mary’s Parish if it is to remain in communion with the Archdiocese of Brisbane and the Roman Catholic Church. However time and time again St Mary’s has chosen to go its own way. Therefore reluctantly I make the following decisions.

1. I will terminate your appointment as Administrator of St Mary’s Parish effective Saturday 21, February 2009 unless you were to resign beforehand.

I would like to add, without trying to exert pressure, that if you wish to retire from active service as a priest, the Archdiocese will assist you as it does other Archdiocesan priests who retire.

2. From the 21st February 2009, I will appoint Dean Ken Howell of St Stephen’s Cathedral as Administrator of St Mary’s until a new administrator is appointed.

From Sunday 22 February 2009 regular Masses at 7am and 9am will be celebrated at St Mary’s Church until the matter is reviewed. Other sacraments of the Church will be available and can be arranged with Dean Ken Howell. Church goers attached to St Mary’s are most welcome to continue, as well as those who wish to return to the parish or those who wish to become new parishioners.

3. I sincerely hope that St Mary’s emphasis on social justice will remain. However such matters should be discussed with the new Administrator

4. Because of its name, chosen originally in 1864, I also hope that sound Marian devotion will be promoted at St Mary’s as was normal in the past. I will do whatever I can to facilitate and encourage this devotion.

5. Because there is doubt about the validity of the many baptisms performed at St Mary’s, I will nominate a special day in the near future when baptisms can be performed at St Stephen’s Cathedral and certificates issued to parents concerned about validity, or those who are adult converts. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made it clear in March 2008 that invalid baptisms cannot be dismissed and forgotten. They must be corrected.

6. Peter, you have already claimed in the media that you may lead people who desire to follow you into a breakaway Christian community elsewhere in South Brisbane. I cannot stop you from doing so. However those who follow you should realise that they will not be in communion with the Roman Catholic Church or the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Peter, making these decisions gives me no satisfaction whatsoever. The separation of Christians is contrary to all that Christ prayed for. Nor does such division promote the Kingdom of God. You have had ample time to make a considered decision. Please God the division that exists in the present time will be healed in the future, probably not in my time. I ask the priests, deacons, religious and people of the Archdiocese of Brisbane to pray for me and for all who belong to the Archdiocese, especially in the community of St Mary’s in its present situation. In this matter I pray also that Mary the mother of Jesus will be our inspiration and guide as we seek her prayerful support for the healing of the Archdiocese of Brisbane and St Mary’s Parish

Sincerely in Christ
Most Rev John A Bathersby DD
Archbishop of Brisbane

Sur les Papes d’Avignon

It should probably come as no surprise that the idea for the world’s largest Gothic building should come from a Goth. Not one of the East Germanic barbarian tribe who terrorised the Romans in the fourth century, nor a black-dressed post-punk pallid type that gauntly haunt the streets of most cities in current times. No, this Goth is Raymond Bertrand de Got, who was crowned pope as Clement V in 1305. A haughty Frenchman, he decided to be crowned in Lyon not Rome. After his election, he went one step further and moved his whole court and papacy out of Rome and into the southern French city of Avignon.

Clement V was a controversial choice for pope. The conclave of cardinals took twelve months to elect him as it was split down the middle between French and Italian cardinals. Clement was a pawn of the powerful French king Philip IV better known as Philip Le Bel (“the fair”). The king’s nickname referred to his hunky good looks not his morals. In truth Philip the Fair was Machiavellian before the word was even invented and used his influence over Clement to destroy the Knights Templar so he could remove himself from the debts he owed them. It was under Philip’s influence that Clement moved his papal court to Avignon so he could be closer the real action that was taking place in France.

Strictly speaking, Avignon was not a French city at the time but a papal enclave surrounded by French territory. In fact Avignon would not become part of France until the time of the Revolution. The city stood on a strategic position on the Rhone river on the main route between Rome and Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, the shrine of St James, and Europe’s most important pilgrimage destination since the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin’s armies in 1187. Avignon had long prospered from this lucrative trade of pilgrims.

But to get past Avignon required a treacherous crossing of the Rhone. The city’s only crossing over the hazardous waters was the St Benezet bridge (the Pont d’Avignon) which was regularly washed away by the fierce currents of Spring and early Summer when the upstream Alpine ice was melting. The bridge was finally put out of use by a catastrophic flood in 1668 and remains today as a sort of pier poking out over half the Rhone. Yet as the only fixed crossing of the river between Lyon and the Mediterranean, the Pont and the town it served were hugely important.

Clement V (and Philip the Fair) were clearly aware of the town’s importance when he (they) chose it as the site of the new papacy in 1305. But it was one thing to choose a new Vatican, what was really needed was a new St Peter’s. And so began the creation of the enormous Palais des Papes. Clement V did not build it himself and was content to as a guest at the Dominican monastery than overlooked the town but his successors were far more ambitious.

For most of the 14th century, Avignon would become the home of the popes and the imposing Palais des Papes would be their residence. Clement's French successor John XXII stayed in the city and upgraded the Dominican residence but it took a third French pope Benedict XII to build an impressive palace at Avignon befitting the papacy. Under his guidance a massive Palais Vieux took shape flanked by high towers. Under the popes that followed him, Clement VI, Innocent VI, and Urban V, the building was expanded to form what is now known as the Palais Neuf.

While a succession of popes became ensconced in Avignon, Rome never forgot the slight of losing its primary source of power. Finally under Guillaume Grimoard, crowned as Urban V, it won back its precious prize in 1367. But it was a short lived triumph. With numerous cities of the Papal States in revolt, Urban was forced to return to Avignon where he died in 1370. His successor Gregory XI would be the last of the official Avignon popes. After he died, the Romans rioted to ensure the election of a local pope. But the new man, Urban VI, was quickly disowned by the hierarchy. A majority of bishops elected Robert of Geneva as a rival pope taking the name Pope Clement VII and re-established a papal court in Avignon. The great Western schism had begun.

Now thanks to the Church’s own manipulations, Christendom had a pope and an antipope. But which was which? Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Rome supported Urban, while France supported Clement. The Holy Roman Empire could not wholly support either Roman emperor. But in 1398 France withdrew its support from Clement’s successor Benedict XIII and that made him officially an antipope. The Council of Constance in 1414 ensured the legitimacy of the Roman line, and excommunicated Benedict formally ending the Avignon line.

The city remained a papal possession and a nepotistic papal nephew continued to rule the town. Finally in 1797 the treaty of Tolentino sanctioned the transfer of the city to the French state. Today the city of Avignon proudly wears its papal (and anti-papal) history on its chest. The Palais des Papes towers over the city and the Rhone. The city is a capital of culture and remains an important outpost of Catholic history, antipopes or not.

Vatican chicanery: Australia and China to upgrade relations with the Holy See

One of the more intriguing outcomes from the Pope’s visit to Australia last week, was the announcement of a new Australian embassy to the Holy See. Previously all Vatican related matters have been handled as a minor item by the Australian embassy in Ireland. Labor crossed the political divide and appointed former National Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer to the post. Fischer will take up the position early next year. According to media reports, the creation of the position goes against the specific advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who see no need for it. There is also criticism of the fact the new embassy will cost $5 million to set up and an additional $3 million a year to support.

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was not worried by these issues as he announced the decision last week in the wake of the papal Sydney visit for World Youth Day. As he farewelled Pope Benedict XVI, Rudd announced that Fischer would become Australia's first resident ambassador to the Vatican. Australia will now join 69 other nations with resident ambassadors to the Holy See, the world’s smallest official sovereign nation. The Age’s foreign affairs writer Daniel Fitton described the decision to open the embassy as bizarre. He found it hard to see how a “deeper engagement” with the Pope fits in Australia’s key foreign priorities of South East Asia, the US and the UN.

Some have pointed to the possible opening of relations between Vatican and China as a pointer to Australia’s decision. Greg Sheridan believes that Rudd’s establishment of the Vatican embassy is a “brilliant and far-sighted act” because of a likely thaw in the Vatican-China relationship. Sheridan says the Vatican is a world power despite being a small state. “It has agencies all over the world, an immense amount of global knowledge and huge influence,” he said. He believes the Vatican will move its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in the next few years. In return, Rome will appoint Catholic bishops, rather than having them appointed by the Chinese Government.

Currently, the Vatican is the only European “nation” that maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which it established at the height of World War II in 1942 (with what was then Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist China). Earlier this month, the Taiwanese ambassador was forced to hose down rumours that the Vatican was switching its allegiance to Beijing. Tu Chou-shen said there were many issues to resolve before that would happen. “I cannot say the Vatican will never forge formal ties with China,” he said. “But such relations will not happen until Beijing commits to respecting basic human rights and the public’s freedom to worship.”

Animosity between the sides goes back over half a century. The Vatican broke off official relations with the newly founded People’s Republic of China in 1951. While the two sides have been making overtures to each other for many years, matters took a turn for the worse in 2006 when Beijing appointed its own bishops ignoring Catholic Church procedure. A Vatican spokesman announced that the pope was “profoundly displeased” to hear of the news and said ordaining new bishops without papal approval seriously harms the unity of the church, leading to "severe canonical sanctions."

The appointments are part of a power play between the Vatican and the Communist Party for control of Catholicism in China. While there are an estimated 13 million Catholics in China (one percent of the total population), they are split across Vatican and Beijing sponsored organising bodies. The official Church organ in China is the state-approved Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). The CPCA is the only brand of Catholicism tolerated by the government and has an estimated five million members. It was established in 1957 by the country’s Religious Affairs Bureau for the purpose of introducing party ideals into the Catholic Church.

Since then the Vatican has maintained an ambiguous relationship with the CPCA. The Vatican’s hand is strengthened by the fact that it has the support of the majority of Chinese Catholics. While five million Chinese Catholics profess to belong to the CPCA, the other eight million follow the illegal underground church which remains loyal to Rome. In a letter to Chinese Catholics last year, Pope Benedict offered “guidelines” about how to evangelise non-Catholics (presumably including CPCA members). He also acknowledged the difficulty of episcopal appointments which he described as a “delicate problem”. Solving this issue will open the door to diplomatic relations. Australia will be there among the neighbours to welcome them.

Mafia acquitted of killing God's Banker

A court in Rome has acquitted five people accused of murdering Italian financier Roberto Calvi due to insufficient evidence. Calvi was known as “God’s Banker” due to his work on behalf of the Vatican’s bank. The decision comes almost 25 years to the day of his death. In 1982 his body was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge with rocks and $15,000 in cash stuffed into his suit. London police initially ruled it suicide but Italian prosecutors eventually brought murder charges in 2003 after pressure from Calvi’s family. The five cleared this week are Giuseppe "Pippo" Calo, a mafia money launderer, businessmen Ernesto Diotallevi and Flavio Carboni, Calvi's driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor, and Carboni's Austrian ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig.

While the acquittal of Kleinszig was not unexpected (the prosecution had asked for her charges to be dropped due to insufficient evidence), the release of the four others after a 20 month trial was a shock. Prosecutors had asked for life sentences for all four. One of the detectives involved in the case, Geoff Katz, said he was surprised by the verdict. "It'll be a tremendous disappointment for the families and also the Italian magistrates who have spent so much time on this case," he said. But one of Calo's lawyers, Massimo Amoroso, said the evidence was weak. The judges have yet to release their reasoning for the verdict.

The acquittals leave a sense of continuing uncertainty over how Calvi met his death. Roberto Calvi was 62 years old when he was found hanging from a rope attached to scaffolding under the bridge. He had come to the UK on bail after having been convicted of corruption in Italy. During the trial, prosecutors alleged Calvi was taken to the bridge by boat and was probably still alive but unconscious when a noose was placed around his neck.

The Milan-born Calvi was chairman of Banco Ambrosiano which collapsed shortly before he died. The bank was founded in 1896 as a Catholic bank and named for St Ambrose, the fourth century archbishop of Milan. The bank’s purpose was to act as a counter-balance to Italy’s secular banks. Calvi joined Ambrosiano in 1947 and worked his way up to become chairman by 1975. Calvi created a number of off-shore companies in the Bahamas and South America and also bought Italy’s premier newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Meanwhile the bank’s major shareholder was now the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), the official name of the Vatican bank. In 1971 Pope Paul VI appointed Chicago-born Archbishop Paul Marcinkus chairman of the IOR. The burly Marcinkus was a papal bodyguard known as “the Pope’s gorilla”. He saved the pontiff’s life after he knocked a knife out of the hands of a deranged Bolivian painter who lunged at the Pope in the Philippines. The bank job was his reward. Marcinkus was a practical man when it came to financial affairs and his dictum was “you can’t run the church on Hail Marys”. He knew the unworldly Vatican needed a commercial banking partner and in 1974 he chose Banco Ambrosiano.

Calvi was a compulsive operator and used a complex network of overseas banks and finance companies to move money out of Italy, inflate share prices, and secure massive unsecured loans. By 1978 the bank was in deep trouble. The bank of Italy issued a report that found Banco Ambrosiano had made illegal exports of several billion lire. In 1981 Calvi was put on trial and given a four year suspended sentence and a $20 million fine for taking $26.4 million out of the country in violation of Italian currency laws. Incredibly Calvi kept his job at the bank.

While investigating Calvi, police uncovered a link to financier Licio Gelli. Both men were freemasons and Gelli was the leader of a covert Masonic lodge called Propaganda Due (P2). This lodge was extremely powerful and its members were journalists, parliamentarians, industrialists, and military leaders and the heads of the three Italian intelligence services. When police searched Gelli’s house they found a document called the Democratic Rebirth Plan which was a plan to steer Italy towards a more autocratic government. Its existence scandalised Italy. Gelli fled the country, but the affair brought down the government of Arnaldo Forlani.

A year later Banco Ambrosiano was on the verge of collapse with debts of $1.4 billion. It was revealed that Calvi had given the money in questionable loans to three of Banco Ambrosiano’s Latin American subsidiaries. The bank was accused of money laundering for P2 and the mafia. Archbishop Marcinkus and the Vatican bank were implicated. The IOR owned ten of the overseas dummy companies in the Bahamas and South America to which Ambrosiano lent the money.

Calvi was devastated by the discovery of the loans. On 5 June 1982, he wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II in which he pleaded for help. The letter started: “I have thought a lot, Holiness, and have concluded that you are my last hope.” Calvi went on to warn the pope that the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano would “provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage”. He also claimed the IOR were hiding the facts about the Vatican’s financial irregularities from the pope.

Five days later Calvi left Rome, presumably without an answer from the pontiff. He obtained a false passport and flew to London. The prosecution in the court case alleged he was lured to London so he could be killed for embezzling Mafia funds as well as stop him from revealing what he knew about the Vatican Bank and P2. After being missing for seven days, he was officially sacked from the bank. On the morning after a mail-room clerk of the Daily Express, walking to his job on Fleet Street, found Calvi swinging from Blackfriars bridge in London’s financial district.

An initial autopsy judged the death as suicide. But a second autopsy a year later gave an open verdict. In 1984 the Vatican Bank agreed to pay US$224 million to the 120 creditors of the failed Banco Ambrosiano as a “recognition of moral involvement” in the bank's collapse. In 1987 Milan judges investigating the Ambrosiano affair issued a warrant for Archbishop Marcinkus’s arrest for being accessories to the fraudulent bankruptcy of the bank. But because the Vatican enjoyed protected borders under the 1929 Lateran Treaty, the Italian police could not arrest him. The Pope accused the Italians of a “brutal cover-up” and refused to extradite him. Marcinkus was quietly retired to Phoenix, Arizona.

Calvi's family continually maintained that his death had been a murder. His body was exhumed in 1998 and a forensic report four years later concluded he had been murdered. The case was re-opened in 2003. The ringleader of the five people charged was Pippo Calo, a Mafia gangster already serving a long prison sentence. Prosecutors said they believed Calvi was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia and mainland Italian mobsters, the Camorra, as punishment for pocketing money they had asked him to launder. The prosecution presented forensic evidence that he was strangled and his suicide staged in a manner suggesting Mafia or Masonic ritual.

But after this week’s verdict, his family are in anguish again. Calvi's son Carlo who now lives in Canada never believed that his father's death was a suicide. He said he was disappointed but not surprised. "I never thought this was going to end today," he said. "But these are the individuals I consider responsible for organizing his journey to London and his murder on the behalf of others."

Richard Dawkins' Lourdes evil

ABC has broadcast part 1 of “The Root of All Evil?” by Richard Dawkins. Produced in 2006, in it Dawkins argues the world would be better off without religion. Part 1 is called ‘The God Delusion”. it was presented in ABC’s Compass brand devoted to faith, values, ethics, and religion with a warning it might cause offence. Dawkins is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and popular science writer who has not only split the evolutionary scientists but has also gained the wrath of religions worldwide by stridently proclaiming his orthodox atheism.

He began by looking at the cult of Lourdes. Lourdes is in Catalan country called Lorda in Occitan. Now a town in the Hautes-Pyrenees department, Lourdes is the largest Catholic religion pilgrimage location in France. In 1858 the Virgin Mary appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in a cave on the banks of the Gave River at Massabielle.

Massabielle is natural karst cave. It is called a grotto which means it is not a deep cave. For a period of about five months, Soubirous claimed the Virgin Mary appeared 18 times. Marie-Bernarde Soubirous was a sickly child; she had cholera in infancy and suffered most of her life from asthma. Her father was a miller, her mother a laundress. Post Napoleonic France was undergoing hard times and Bernadette grew up in extreme poverty. She survived by doing farm work and waiting at tables in the nearby town of Bartrès. Aged 14, she returned to Lourdes to attend schooling. But the classes in French were difficult for children who spoke Gascon, a dialect of Occitan, which now survives in the form of its cousin Catalan.

Her teachers thought Soubirous was simple minded. On 11 February 1848, she was out collecting firewood with her sister and a friend at Massabielle. Bernadette claimed to see "a small young lady" standing in a niche in the rock. This lady wore a white veil, a blue girdle and had a golden rose on each foot and in her hands she held a string of Rosary beads. Neither of the other two girls saw anything. The Small Young Lady asked her to return every day for the next fortnight.

When Bernadette told her story, the town divided into two camps. While some dismissed her story as nonsense, others were desperate to believe. She soon had a large number of people following her on her daily journey, some out of curiosity and others who firmly believed that they were witnessing a miracle. Bernadette alone would see the young lady for the next seventeen nights. She called her 'Aquerò' ("the lady").

But the townspeople were quick to judge that Aquerò was really the Virgin Mary. Bernadette seemed to confirm this, when on the 17th apparition the Aquerò spoke to the young girl. Speaking in fluent Gascon, the lady said “Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou”. This translates in English as I am the Immaculate Conception.

Four years earlier the Pope Pius IX had promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; that, alone of all human beings who have ever lived, the Virgin Mary was born without the stain of original sin. This doctrine was not yet well known outside the Catholic intelligentsia and certainly unknown to a semi-illiterate farmherd teenage girl. Here was proof that some higher authority was at work. Matters soon took another turn. After this appearance Soubirous began to dig at the site and discovered a spring in the grotto. The first known cure occurred that same year.

Catherine Latapie lived at Loubajac, a few kilometres from Lourdes. She had injured her right hand after a fall from a tree eighteen months before and was now nearing the end of a pregnancy. One night Latapie got a sudden inspiration, rose at three in the morning and went to Lourdes. Arriving at dawn, she met Soubirous at the grotto and put her hand in the spring. Her hand was immediately cured and went home that evening where she gave birth. A doctor pronounced the Latapie case as “presenting a supernatural character”. Soubirous was now famous.

Some of the people who interviewed her following her revelation of the visions thought her simple-minded. But she stuck to her story. The civil authorities tried to frighten Bernadette into recanting her accounts, but she always remained faithful to the vision Aged 22 Bernadette entered the Monastery of Nevers. She died aged 35 and was canonized a saint in 1933.

Lourdes is now big business. 5.5 million people take the pilgrimage each year. There are 40,000 beds to receive them. 70,000 of these are sick or handicapped and looking for a cure. Out of its millions of visitors, there have been 66 documented cures that have been given "miracle" status by the Catholic Church, including Latapie's case. In statistical evidence, Dawkins pointes out, that is nothing at all. He finds it more likely that patients seeking a cure at Lourdes are more likely to catch another disease from a sick person. Yet the pilgrims desperately lean on the faith like a crutch and their belief remains profound. That is the real miracle.

No Turkey thanksgiving for the Pope

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Turkey today to start his first official visit to a Muslim country. The pope will travel to Turkey’s three biggest cities, Istanbul, Izmir and the capital Ankara, during his four-day stay. Although authorities will welcome him warmly, his arrival is not a matter of delight to thousands who protested against the visit of an ‘enemy of Islam’. 25,000 demonstrators lined the streets of Istanbul on Sunday chanting “no to the pope!” The protest was organized by the Saadet (Felicity) Islamist political party who see Benedict as a symbol of Western intolerance and injustices against Muslims.

Security forces are on full alert for the pope's visit. Nearly 4,000 police, including units in full riot guard, watched over the protest. According to Selcan Hacaoglu, a Turkish journalist with AP, Turkey has mobilised “an army of snipers, bomb disposal experts and riot police, as well as navy commandos to patrol the Bosporus Straits.” The pope will travel through the streets in a closed car, not in the glass-sided "popemobile" usually used on papal trips.

The pope's visit has two distinct objectives: firstly to assuage Muslim anger after his Regensburg comments and secondly to heal a thousand year rift between two branches of Christianity: the Vatican and Orthodox churches. Meanwhile Turkish officials hope to use the visit to promote their ambitions of joining the EU and showcase the country’s secular political system. Benedict’s first stop is Ankara where he will meet with political and Muslim religious leaders. Not among them is Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who is in Latvia to attend a NATO meeting for the first two days and then has “some important meetings” in Turkey for the last two days. Benedict will however meet two senior Turkish officials, the president Ahmet Necdet Sezer and its Ali Bardakoglu, the Islamic cleric who oversees the country's religious affairs. Bardakoglu recently told Reuters “the Pope is head of the Catholic world and maintaining good ties between the Islamic world and the Catholic world is in everybody's interests”.

After meeting the politicians in the capital, the pope then heads to Istanbul for the second half of his mission. There he will meet the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Of Turkey's 70 million population, some 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox Christians, and 20,000 are Roman Catholic. Despite the low number of adherents, Istanbul remains the spiritual home of the Orthodox Church. Then known as Constantinople, it was the Christian Byzantine capital for over a thousand years until it fell to Muslim forces in 1453 and became the seat of the Ottoman Empire.

Benedict XVI, spiritual leader of 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide, has been on the defensive in the Muslim world for the last three months. On 12 September, he addressed an academic audience at the University of Regensburg in Germany which aroused Islamic indignation worldwide. In the speech Benedict mentions a conversation between an obscure 14th c. Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam. The pope quotes Paleologus as saying “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The speech caused a hail of negative reactions across the Muslim world still smarting from the Danish cartoons controversy. In Somalia, a gunman shot dead an Italian nun, thousands protested at rallies in Iran, Pakistan and India, and in the Palestinian Occupied Territories angry mobs attacked Christian churches. Benedict apologised a few days later saying “these in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought”. In Turkey, protesters took to the streets but religious leader Ali Bardakoglu welcomed the Pope's apology, and described his respect for Islam as a "civilised position".

But Prime Minister Erdogan has not been so accommodating. Both sides have been playing down his decision not to meet with the pope. A Turkish official told Reuters that "if there was a possibility for a meeting, the prime minister would have met him". The Vatican says it was always aware a meeting between the two was unlikely. But Italian and Turkish media are treating it as a calculated snub. La Stampa accused Erdogan of "bad manners" while Turkey's morning daily Sabah claimed Erdogan was "escaping the pope." Erdogan’s Islamist party is based in Turkey’s rural community and many of his supporters are openly hostile to the papal presence. Erdogan is having it both ways by avoiding angering to his electoral base while also having an official excuse to avoid causing offence to the Vatican.