Joan McAlpine: The debt Scots owe to the Vatican

Published on Tuesday 14 September 2010 11:44

Cardinal Keith O'Brien got the tone just right when asked to respond to the Rev Ian Paisley's plan to demonstrate against the Pope's visit. It wouldn't be the same without him, or words to that effect.

So the people of Edinburgh will bask in the presence of two octogenarian celebrities tomorrow. That's a bit flippant, of course. His Holiness is the spiritual leader of a billion people and probably one of the only world figures untainted by the modern cult of celebrity. Still, the Roman Catholic Church has a way with spectacle that can outshine anything offered by Simon Cowell. Papa Bene, as some of the younger pilgrims call him, has the X factor by virtue of the position he occupies.

Paisley, on the other hand, really is a celebrity. He is also a dinosaur, but of the cuddly variety these days, more a Barney than a Tyrannosaurus. His personal and political journey is extraordinary: from scourge of the Catholic nationalist community to First Minister of a power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, and part of a Chuckle Brothers double act with his then republican deputy, Martin McGuinness.

As he unfurls his banner before John Knox's High Street home tomorrow, it's not impossible to imagine a few pilgrims stopping for a chat and a photograph. Paisley, and the views he represents, are no longer a threat. That change, summarised in Cardinal O'Brien's cheery words, is an indication of how far Scotland has come since the pastoral visit of the previous Pope, John Paul II.

Watching the archive footage of that visit on television, the powerful theme was that Scottish Catholics had, at last, become a valued part of society. The ghetto was within living memory, but it was fading. The superstar Pope told the assembled multitude at Glasgow's Bellahouston Park: "With grateful hearts turn to God and thank him that tranquil days have been restored to the Catholic community in Scotland."

John Paul met the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland beneath the statue of Knox. The tone of the visit was ecumenical, with the emphasis on shared Christian values.

Yet 1982 also acknowledged the community's sense of deliverance from the politics of Paisley and his ilk. There was gratitude that Scotland had escaped the barbarism of Northern Ireland and appeared to be on a very different sort of journey.

The tone of this week's visit demonstrates just how far we have come. The rhetoric last time around was positive, but it suggested that Catholics were outsiders who had now been welcomed into mainstream Scotland.Now we learn that they never really went away.

There is a renewed awareness of the role of the Catholic Church in shaping our nation. This is particularly significant as we remember the 450th anniversary of the Reformation that brought the Church of Scotland into existence. Even with the advance of secularism, most educated Scots are aware of the central role the protestant Church played in forging our national identity, so much so that its independence was guaranteed in the 1707 Treaty of Union. Despite its dwindling congregations, it is rightly recognised as a social linchpin.

But the lasting legacy of this particular papal visit is likely to be a new awareness of the role the Catholic Church played in forging not just Scotland's identity but its statehood and political sovereignty. The early leaders of the Scottish medieval church were the most ardent of nationalists and founded some of our key institutions, such as the ancient universities. They were keen to have a direct relationship with Rome and knew that if Scotland were swallowed up by England, they would only be able to speak to the Vatican through intermediaries in Canterbury or York.

It's a bit like the arguments today about the difficulties of Scotland expressing a strong voice in the European Union when it is represented by a UK negotiator. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath was an appeal for recognition from the Vatican, so the Scottish Church would have its own voice. Indeed, Pope Benedict might never have set foot in Scotland but for the Declaration of Arbroath. When Cardinal O'Brien heard the state visit might be confined to England, he jetted out to Rome to make his case directly - and won.

Perhaps, after this visit, we should work towards giving bishops Lamberton of St Andrews and Wishart of Glasgow the same status as Knox himself. The bishops were the unsung heroes of the Wars of Independence, backing Bruce and Wallace in turn. The rebel knight and the warrior king had enemies who challenged their right to lead. But the bishops identified them as strong men who could deliver for the country and its Church, and endorsed them for that reason.

This is the concept of Community of the Realm - the idea that the king was, to some extent, subject to the will of the people. It's even been adapted for the modern democratic age. The Claim of Right for Scotland, the document that eventually lead to the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament, asserted the sovereignty of the Scottish people to chose the form of government that best suited them.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that the First Minister, Alex Salmond, chose to emphasise this history at a reception last night in advance of Benedict's visit. He presented the cardinal with Scotland's gift to the Pope, a Celtic-style sandstone slab inlaid with granite from the cave of St Ninian of Galloway, the missionary who brought Christianity to Scotland in AD450.Tomorrow is the feast of St Ninian and children from schools named after the saint will join a procession for the Pope in Edinburgh's Princes Street. And if that was not enough to remind us of the Church's ancient Scottish roots, the Holy Father will also find time for a private prayer before the relic of St Andrew with Cardinal O'Brien.

The significance of this is not lost on the First Minister, whose speech last night recounted the special relationship between the Vatican and its "special daughter", as we were described in a very early papal bull. Salmond pointed out that the sandstone slab was a belated reciprocation of the Sword of State, a symbolic gift given by Pope Julius in 1507.

"Without the Church," said Salmond. "There would have been no Scotland as a country in its own right."

His unionist opponents might take issue. And Paisley, another kind of unionist, will splutter more than usual. But historians will find it difficult to argue.