Pope

It seems that everyone agrees Pope Francis should be Time's 'Person of the Year 2013'. Better him than Miley Cyrus, at any rate, or Bashar al-Assad, and Francis deserves it, too. This year he has -- forgive the media-speak -- changed the narrative about Christianity in the liberal world. He's spreading the Good News, not just reacting to the bad. But Catholics have mixed feelings about all this acclaim for their new Pope. Peggy Noonan put her finger on the key point in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, when she suggested that Time would choose Francis because he is different 'in ways Time's editors and reporters find congenial'.

Home Having recalled Parliament to debate British military action over Syria, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, found the government defeated, much to his surprise, by 285-272, thanks to 30 Conservatives and nine Liberal Democrats voting with the opposition. He immediately told the Commons: ‘It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly.’ Next day, Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Lib Dems, tweeted: ‘In 50 years trying to serve my country I have never felt so depressed/ashamed.

It used to be said by Catholic priests back in the 1950s that the Devil was delighted when human beings decided that he did not exist. In those days it seemed unlikely that he would disappear altogether from human consciousness because he was so well known — as Baal or Beelzebub in the Old Testament, the Prince of Lies in the New, as Lucifer in the King James Bible, as Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, and as Mephistopheles in the legend of Faust; but it has turned out that a subtle move from scripture into myth, folklore and finally literature has been an effective way of becoming unreal. Today we hear his name more frequently in lectures on English literature than in seminars on theology.

White smoke from the Vatican this afternoon may signal that the new Pope is Cardinal Angelo Scola. But the longer the papal conclave goes on, the more likely it becomes that St Peter’s next successor will be a global figure – which probably means either a North or Latin American, rather than an African or Asian. That, at least, is the prevailing consensus of the Vaticanisti this morning. And it makes sense. Scola, probably the least talked about of the heavy favourites, is the obvious choice to follow Pope Benedict: a theologian of similarly high standing (though his writings are less accessible to lay readers), he has grown in stature in the last few years, and is widely respected among – and familiar to – the Church hierarchy. He is Italian.

Some wag has gone around Rome putting up spoof 'Vota Turkson' posters. This is a reference to the Ghanian Cardinal Peter Turkson, who has been much-tipped to be the first black Pope. Turkson has a lot of support, it seems, and not all of it sardonic. Many Catholics say now is the time for an African Pope. And there's a sense that it might take someone from the developing world to knock the Roman Curia -- widely thought to be an arcane and corrupt body - into shape. But as I've written in this week's magazine, a number of Vatican insiders think that, far from being an outsider, the next Pope must be an Italian. Only an Italian, it's said, can understand and fix the complex problems within the Curia.

In a corner of the Sistine Chapel, below Michelangelo’s hell, is a door to the little chamber they call ‘the room of tears’. Some painter-decorators are in there, frantically doing the place up. That’s because, in a matter of days, a new Pope will be led into the room. According to tradition, at that moment, as he first contemplates the magnitude of his role, he will weep. A myth, you might think. But we can be sure that the next Supreme Pontiff — whoever he is — will have plenty to sob about. Since Benedict XVI’s resignation two weeks ago, each day seems to have brought yet more bad news. Scandal is swarming around the upcoming papal conclave like a Biblical plague.

As ever, the headlines are more sensational than the speech, but marginally so in this case. Baroness Warsi has asserted that Islamophobia is rife and socially acceptable in Britain. It is a peculiarly crass statement for an ordinary politician to have made, but, then again, the gabbing Baroness is a very ordinary politician. Some of her speech is sensible, even unanswerable. She attacks the media and the arts for ‘the patronising, superficial way faith is discussed in certain quarters.’ Questioning faith is the natural and welcome adjunct of a free society, but specific criticism is morphing into general hostility.

No need to explain why we've disinterred this piece by Peter Ackroyd, on the last papal visit to Britain, from the Spectator archives. And, to the left, the cover image by Garland from that week's issue. As news emerges that five people have been arrested in connection with a terror plot against Benedict XVI, a reminder that papal visits are always replete with global-political significance: The Pope and his princeling, by Peter Ackroyd, The Spectator, 5 June 1982 The pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, carrying their fold-up chairs in plastic Sainsbury bags; strange rumours on the train from London: 'You can't get into town without a permit. They say they've stopped all the cars for three miles … They've taken the door off the cathedral'.