There's hypocrisy in the hoopla over Pope's visit

By KATE TAYLOR
Thursday, July 25, 2002

What mighty cultural festival was this, I wondered? What public event could possibly be so large or so well-funded that it became a line item in the city budget? Dozens of newspaper articles, hours of CBC-TV coverage, yards of cross-bearing banners, multiple warnings about road closures and a few more of my tax dollars later, I had learned that World Youth Day was a euphemism for a visit from John Paul II, leader of the Roman Catholic Church. It was, in fact, a week of events targeted at Catholics between the ages of 16 and 35 and culminating with a giant outdoor mass at which the Pope might say a few lines if his failing health permitted.

Figuring out why the Catholic Church is trotting out its one superstar for the benefit of a young audience isn't difficult. It's the same demographic motivation that drives everyone from the creators of reality TV and Nike running shoes to the managers of arts organizations and public-radio networks: Go young or go home.

Figuring out why three levels of government are ignoring the supposed separation of church and state and helping stage this event (with $6-million of new spending from the city; $2.3-million from the province of Ontario and logistical support from several federal departments including Foreign Affairs and the military) is not too tough either: Almost half the Canadian population identifies itself as Catholic even if many of those people saw the inside of a polling booth more recently than the inside of a church.

But understanding the attraction of Catholic youth to a frail old man who preaches that sex outside marriage is a sin and birth control an abomination is more difficult. The Pope is often described as a symbol of hope, as though his occasional pleas for peace and justice were effective diplomatic interventions in a warring world. Writing in these pages, pilgrim Anna Halpine also depicts him as a standard-bearer of freedom, as though he were an elected leader or represented consensual or inclusive values. Others speak vaguely of their spiritual needs and his celebrity status.

Meanwhile, stories in the media alternate between features proclaiming a renaissance in church attendance and an atmosphere of religious quest among the young, and interviews in which World Youth Day organizers bemoan the small turnout for an event that was originally supposed to attract 500,000 pilgrims and is now down to 200,000.

In truth, Catholics, along with most other Canadians, are ambivalent about religion. Studies suggest only a quarter of those who call themselves Catholics actually attend mass every week and declining birth rates bear silent witness to their attitude to doctrine. Protestants, who belong to the second-largest religious group in Canada and account for about a third of the population, are even less enthusiastic about churchgoing, with the various denominations attracting only 10 to 20 per cent of their nominal members. Most Canadians are professing to beliefs they don't actually practise.

Perhaps it's not that surprising: When StatsCan sends out the census form or a pollster calls, it's easier to tick off Catholic or Baptist or Anglican, than to reply, you know, I was raised in the church, but I haven't actually set foot inside the place in some years and well, if you are asking me does God exist, um, no, I don't think so, but I haven't actually thought about it that much lately, and I guess you can put me down as Catholic, or Baptist, or Anglican.

It's the same kind of ambivalence that showed up in this week's Ipsos-Reid poll revealing that a majority of Canadians of all beliefs respect the Pope, they just don't agree with him, that's all. So, Catholics all over town get misty-eyed about a visit from John Paul II the way monarchists get misty-eyed about a royal tour, without any real compunction to obey these symbolic authorities.

In this atmosphere of confusion and some hypocrisy, it's unusual to find those brave enough to proclaim they have no religious affiliation: only 3.3 million Canadians ticked off that box in 1991 (although the number is expected to rise when figures on religion from the 2001 census become available). Yet as Judge Alfred Goodwin tried to remind his fellow Americans last month when he ruled that the reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional, to have true division of church and state is not simply to celebrate ecumenicalism but also to make room for those who choose not to believe in any higher being at all. The aggressive presumption surrounding World Youth Day, from the inaccurate title to the government funding, the gleeful media coverage and even the unprecedented road closures, is an affront to a society that says it makes room for all persuasions.
ktaylor@globeandmail.ca