I’m delighted and honoured to be joining Raymond Arroyo at EWTN to cover the Holy Father’s visit to England and Scotland this week. I fly to EWTN on Thursday and will join Raymond as a guest on the World Over Live on that evening. On the following three days, Raymond and I will be covering Pope Benedict’s visit, including his meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace and at Westminster Abbey, his celebration of Mass at Westminster Cathedral, and, the highlight and ultimate purpose of the visit, the beatification of Cardinal Newman in Birmingham. It is truly a great honour to be able to cover the Holy Father’s visit to my homeland and I hope that readers of this site will be able to tune in to EWTN’s coverage. It’s the next best thing to being there in person!
Congratulations, Joseph! Along with your many readers and fans – and Newman’s many readers and fans – I will be watching with delight.
May we all pray for the Holy Father’s safety on this trip, for the devil hates Cardinal Newman and a kind of chaos is broiling in England over this visit.
So far, things appear to be going well. Your coverage last night with Raymond seemed positive, but–was it my imagination?–all three of you appeared tense.
He amazes me. This soft-spoken, gentle-hearted, very old man is an intellectual giant, but more than that–look at his frailty sometime and be aware of a personal and spiritual courage greater than any army on earth.
I’ve been praying for his safety, not just physical safety, but safety from abuse, from humiliation, from spiritual pain. But I know that he can handle it. I also know that when the snakes crawl out of their holes and hiss their venomous hatred, they only reveal themselves. They can’t hurt him. They are the ones who need our prayers.
The coverage-SKYNEWS should be given a Papal medal. Really they covered it so well.
The BBC’s coverage was extensive-but an underlying bias-Example: Robert Piggot, the BBC Religious Correspondent. He described the Pope’s generous and beautifully curteouus mention of the anniversary of the Battle of Britain as Benedict (from memory) ‘distancing himself from nazi ideology’.
I noticed it was replaced pretty quickly by another report.
But overall a fantastic visit.
Something from England- It was at the end of his visit to Birmingham and all the seminarians came out and spontaneously burst into a latin hymn(don’t remember the name). That will stay with me. Really lovely moment.