On Cardinal Walter Kasper’s Comment:

The English media has very vehemently capitalised on Cardinal Kasper’s slip of the tongue, but an objective look at the remark could actually be construed very positively.

Just before the historic Papal visit to the UK this past week, Cardinal Kasper commented to a German magazine something to the effect that “arriving at Heathrow airport was like landing in a Third World country.”

The comment obviously referred to the disarray of incoming passengers arriving into Heathrow and the great volume of them that are made to line up in huge queues according to national origin.

This is a caustic – though otherwise innocent – remark pointing to the fact that the sheer volume of foreign visitors passing through the English airport awards it an untidy feeling not at all unlike the street markets of "Third World" countries.

Nevertheless, parties in the UK media greatly exaggerated the remark and attempted to link it to the Pope’s declaration on how extremisms in secular and atheist movements can be harmful to society in general. Ros Atkins, the host of BBC’s World Have Your Say programme, asked me during his interview on this Friday the 17th weather I thought that the Cardinal thought the UK similar to a Third World Country on account of the secularist tendencies of UK society.

At the time, my wits were insufficient to come up with a particularly good answer in the allotted time, but here’s what I wanted to say then:

First and foremost, the very term “Third World country” is imprecise and completely prejudiced. It was coined to refer to economically underdeveloped societies and latter associated with corruption and social decay. However, there are so-called “Third World” countries like South Africa and Brazil that generate technology ahead of the “First World” in several fields and are amongst the leading world economies (Brazil is the 9th and is economically ahead of many European nations). Hence, it would be incoherent to assume that a “Third World” country is underdeveloped in any particular secularist point of view.

Secondly, nowadays the “Third World” tends to be more spiritually inclined than the “First World”. This is not to say there is no secularism in “Third World” nations or no religion in the "First World", but the truth is there are more religious people in these nations.

It could be argued that spiritualism is more present there because there is greater need, in which case the Vatican would be well aware of it because the Catholic Church is the single largest Humanitarian and Charitable organisation in the globe.

Equally, it could be argued that there is greater religiosity in the “Third World” because there are less materialistic distractions to deviate people from what’s truly important, in which case calling the UK a “Third World” nation would actually be a compliment.

Be that as it may, the largest concentration of Roman Catholics is in Latin America, which itself is composed solely of “Third World” countries. A cardinal of the Vatican would certainly know such facts and would not hint at any link between secularism, social underdevelopment and “Third World” nations.

Finally, secularist nations tend to be more materialistic and very economically developed, which is not to say that all predominantly secularist societies are particularly developed. The United Kingdom is recognised throughout the globe as a developed nation, a “First World” country. It is also recognised as a great nation for all of what its people have achieved over the centuries. A German-born person of Cardinal Kasper’s age, who has grown old in the aftermath of World War II, would know very well the UK’s worth as an economy and as a military power, and would not think it a "Third World" nation. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI has, throughout his discourse whilst in the UK, continually reaffirmed his admiration for the people of the United Kingdom and his respect for the social development of the nation.

Taken together, the three arguments above point to the fact that:

A. The Vatican respects the people of the UK and holds the nation in high regard
B. The Vatican values the peoples of “Third World” countries and hold them in high regard
C. The UK media distorted the cardinal’s comment to generate controversy where there was none. The comment was taken out of context and associated to the Pope’s own lucid message under a different light than that which had been originally meant.

So, if one has even half the wit necessary to understand an attempt at inflammatory rhetoric, it should be plain enough that the entire episode had very little to do with Cardinal Kasper’s slip of the tongue, and very much to do with prompting public opinion against the Catholic Church to further a very persecutory agenda; even as the Pontiff was attempting to improve relations with the people of the UK.

To me the Papal visit happening under such adverse scenario means that some are trying more than others to reach out and establish some common ground; amongst them The Queen and The PM of England and The Pope, all of whom agreed that the visit was necessary; thus making it into a State visit.

Conversely, the blind hatred displayed by certain groups among the English people goes to show how important it was for the Pope to have visited at this particular moment.

The unfortunate fact on all this was that this frivolous inflammatory effort by parties in the UK media found fertile ground in the already disproportioned animosity against the Catholic Faith that has been build into the people of the United Kingdom.

Personally, I feel pity for the share of intolerance and short-sightedness that can sometimes surface in an otherwise great nation, such as the United Kingdom, and I pray that understaing and respect come once more to dominate the hearts and minds of the people of the UK so that they may be called "British" and not "Brutish".