Mainstream Catholics will be pleased to have heard the Pope Benedict's visit to the UK

[Joe Chi Minh]

was an extraordinary success. A glimpse of it can be seen in some of the threads and responses in the Comment/ Belief/Catholic threads of the Guardian. Although nothing could convey the joyful atmosphere and the excited focus on the event in the country.

Personally, I had never understood this cult of personality in relation to any Pope; particularly in the light of the Epistles and Peter's refusal to be regarded as anything other than 'a man, like you', when he had interceded to obtain a man's miraculous cure.

However, while I think that that Gospel message should be the base-line for the Church and its leaders, the default position, I am left in no doubt now that this visit was indeed an event which had God's warmest blessing. Even the weather in Scotland was sunny. It was also heart-warming to the see secularists in the media having to cover parts of it, interviews, vox pops, etc, on the back foot, speaking through gritted teeth. Despite their representing a small minority, the militant secularists have been in the 'box seat' for a long time.

Hence, I believe, the rapturous reception that Benedict received. He gave new hope to the people, the mainstream - the voiceless majority of the 70% who still called themselves Christians in a survey the other day - normally marginalized by the liberal atheist 'bien pensants'. His mission is the re-Christianizing of Europe - winning it back from the militant secularists.

Here is a heartening letter on the subject of the papal visit in the Letters column of today's Daily Mail:

"NOT being a Catholic, I was sceptical about the visit to the UK of Pope Benedict XVI - but how wrong I was.

I'm now in awe of this quiet, unassuming, intelligent man. The whole visit was thought-provoking.

We, as a once great nation, have got to sit up and take notice of his message. If not our young people are doomed to a life of spiritual emptiness.

I would also like to praise the excellent coverage by the BBC.

The whole visit was the greatest event on our shores for many a year. Come on Stephen Fry et al, eat your miserable hearts out."

[CBHagman]

1. Thanks for your perspective.

I have to confess I only read a bit of the coverage of the pope's visit, mostly via the Guardian website, and I don't yet have a full sense of the events.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. I know it sounds somewhat crazy, but even the TV reception seemed

better than ever; the picture seemed clearer and the colours of a clearer, more beautiful pastille hue. I've always thought the colours were wrong, from the day we bought our TV, but my wife has never thought so.

It surprised me more than ever, because I really (still) don't think the cult of personality associated with the papacy is a good idea. But he was such a palpably holy man, and everyone so lifted in spirit, edified, I'm at a loss to understand it all. You remember, Peter said, when a man kneeled at his feet, "Get up. I'm a man like you." And although I love the cult of the saints, I'm anxious that people should be made more aware of their own extraordinary status as "other Christs", also.

So, I'm left with the memory of a beautiful experience, and a seemingly imponderable conundrum.