Bishop hopes Popes visit will boost confidence of Catholics

The Catholic bishop in charge of mission in England and Wales says he hopes the Pope’s imminent state visit will rekindle the confidence of Catholics in their own beliefs.

Bishop Kieran Conry, Chair of the Department for Evangelisation and Catechesis, said he wanted Catholics to experience “renewal” and find a new confidence to express their faith during the four-day visit of Pope Benedict XVI, which begins on Thursday.

The bishop makes the comments in a video message for Home Mission Sunday on September 19, a day when Catholics pray for the spread of the Gospel in England and Wales.

He said: “I would hope the practical legacy of this Home Mission Sunday and the Pope’s visit will be renewal of ourselves, a finding of our confidence as Catholics, our trust in ourselves, our belief in ourselves, and our belief in our capacity and our right to stand up and say ‘I believe’, even though many people in our society will say ‘Keep quiet about that’.

“No, I have a right to stand up and say ‘I do believe’ and I hope that is the legacy ... the confidence that we belong to a Church which is vibrant, strong and alive.”

Bishop Conry’s comments coincide with the findings of a new poll by ComRes for the BBC, in which 52% of Catholics admitted their faith in the Church leadership had been “shaken” by the scale of child abuse and their handling of cases.

People who say they were abused by clergy in the Catholic Church are meeting in London today for a conference focused on the experiences of victims. The conference has been put together by Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, a support group for victims. The organisers are compiling the stories of delegates into a book, which they hope to deliver to the Pope.

Pope Benedict apologised to victims of child abuse earlier in the year. He is in Britain from Thursday to Sunday for the first visit by a pope to Britain since John Paul II in 1982.

He will start his visit in Edinburgh, where he will meet with Scottish Catholic Church leaders before heading go Glasgow in the afternoon to preach at an open air mass in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park later in the day.

The Pope will then fly to London, where he will meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and other dignitaries, and preside over an open air mass in Hyde Park.

His visit ends on Sunday in Birmingham where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman and preside over an open air mass in Crofton Park.