This film was made by the Rev. David Simpson, a member of York Cine Club, who awarded the film winner of their 10 Minutes Film Competition in 1983. The YFA has 21 films made by David Simpson spanning a period from 1978 to 1986, one of the films a Newsreel of 1984, a collaborative effort with the York Cine Club. These films are mainly based in York, covering local places and events. The York Cine Club used to put on film shows and meet at the Enterprise Club before gradually folding with the...

This film was made by the Rev. David Simpson, a member of York Cine Club, who awarded the film winner of their 10 Minutes Film Competition in 1983. The YFA has 21 films made by David Simpson spanning a period from 1978 to 1986, one of the films a Newsreel of 1984, a collaborative effort with the York Cine Club. These films are mainly based in York, covering local places and events. The York Cine Club used to put on film shows and meet at the Enterprise Club before gradually folding with the coming of video. David became interested in filmmaking through his brother-in-law in the 1970s, and later became the Associate Curate of All Saints Church, York. David is not the only Anglican to have made films about his local area, the Rev Brian Underwood, the vicar at St Mary’s Church in the village of Carleton in Craven, is another – see People and Events (1970/71). 

 

The film shows the qualities of David Simpson as a filmmaker in being able to capture so much of the flavour of the event in just 10 minutes – although unfortunately the sound quality at the beginning isn’t very good.  David simply turned up on the day without any prior plans, and was fortunate to get some good vantage points. The day turned out to be very peaceful, regardless of the police presence, even a jolly family occasion. The Pope did have his detractors though: six years later Ian Paisley declared John Paul II to be ‘the antichrist’ when the Pope was addressing the European Parliament.

 

The Pope arrived at Gatwick on 28th May before moving on to visit five other cities, apart from York, as well as five places in London, within the space of just six days. It was an historic occasion as it was the first visit of a pope to Britain. York was no doubt chosen as a venue because of its history in the early Christian Church.  Constantine, who decreed the toleration of Christianity, was declared Roman Emperor in York, and later in 601 Pope Gregory selected York to be the Church's centre in the north for the conversion of Britain to Christianity. 

 

The large grounds of Knavesmire Racecourse made it an obvious place to accommodate the crowd of more than 200,000 people (the Yorkshire Post has put it as high as 250,000).  The racecourse took this name because it was a place where knaves (ignoble characters) were executed. It was also the place where Dick Turpin was hanged, on April 19th 1739, for horse stealing from where the racecourse now stands.  The Ebor Stand takes its name from the pre-Roman name Eborakon - place of yew trees – renamed to Eboracum by the Romans in 71AD. The first race meeting there dates from 1731.

 

In each of the places he visited the Pope gave a different homily. In York, Pope John Paul II the topic was marriage and family life, declaring that, "In a marriage a man and a woman pledge themselves to one another in an unbreakable alliance of total mutual self-giving, a total union of love. Love that is not a passing emotion or temporary infatuation, but a responsible and free decision to bind oneself completely, 'in good times and in bad', to one's partner. It is the gift of oneself to the other. It is a love to be proclaimed before the eyes of the whole world. It is unconditional."  (The full text can be found in  Jennings, see References) In Coventry the Pope had quoted Shakespeare – who some have maintained had Catholic sympathies –  from Portia’s speech from the Merchant of Venice, ‘the quality of mercy is not strain, it dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath’. The Pope left the racecourse by helicopter for RAF Leeming on his way to Murrayfield, Scotland.

 

The absence of visits in the past may be due to the prolonged period of anti-Catholicism since Henry XIII’s Act of Supremacy in 1534, making the crown head of the Church in England. This anti-Catholic feeling was fuelled by the persecution of Protestants under Queen Mary I, the attempt by Philip II of Spain to claim the English throne and later by the gunpowder plot. This anti-Catholicism was enshrined in various Acts, which gradually softened until the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. The first visit of an Archbishop of Canterbury to Rome, that of Geoffrey Fisher in 1960, signaled the great diminishment of anti-Catholic sentiment.

 

The visit was a pastoral one, rather than an official state visit. It came at a sensitive time when Britain was at war with Argentina, a Catholic country, over the Falkland Isles (the Malvinas), leading to the cancellation of all planned formal meetings, including a visit to Downing Street. There was a danger of alienated half of all Catholics who lived in South America. In fact it was only after a meeting with four Cardinals from Argentina and Great Britain in Rome a week before the scheduled visit that the decision was taken to go ahead on May 25th, just three days before landing.  Two weeks later the Pope visited Argentina where he met General Galtieri (see Peter Jennings).

 

In the previous year he survived a mysterious assassination attempt in St Peter’s Square, spending the summer recuperating from his wounds. It was also a time when General Jaruzelski had imposed martial law in the Pope’s homeland of Poland, declaring the opposition movement, Solidarnosc, an illegal organization – hence the banner signifying solidarity with Solidarnosc. 

 

In 1978 he was the first non-Italian pope for 455 years, narrowly elected just months after the previous pope, Pope John Paul I, had been elected, only to die shortly after.   On becoming Pope, Karol Józef Wojtyla took the name John Paul II in honour of his predecessor. He was an evangelical Pope, travelling more than any previous pope: in the first twenty years of his papacy the pope made 170 visits to 115 countries – more than all 263 previous popes combined.  Yet although it is generally agreed that he was a conservative Pope on many issues – preaching against liberal positions on marriage, pre-marital sex, contraception, abortion and homosexuality, and clamping down on unorthodox theologians – he was more progressive on social issues of poverty and justice, with the concept of solidarity being central to his thinking. In 2001 it was revealed that he had Parkinson’s disease, and he died in 2005.

 

The Latin phrase Totus Tuus – ‘totally yours’ – emblazoned on the banner that adorns the stage, was one that the Pope adopted from a motto of the French eighteenth century Saint,Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort. Pope John Paul II was an admirer of Montfort, and he took this phrase as an expression of piety, devotion and Marian devotion.

 

At the time of writing (October 2009) plans have been announced for Pope Benedict XVI to make an official visit to Britain in 2010. Like the visit of John Paul II, this visit too will be unwelcome to those who, like the National Secular Society, oppose the Pope’s views on issues like contraception. Furthermore, this visit comes at a time when the Pope has just approved an Apostolic Constitution making it easier for Anglicans in opposition to policy on women clergy and gays to join the Catholic Church. This has been seen by many as being a grave threat to Anglican unity. Nevertheless, this visit will be welcomed by theestimated 4.2 million Catholics living in England and Wales.

 

References

 

Michael Hornsby-Smith (ed.), Catholics in England 1950-2000, Cassell, London, 1995.

Peter Jennings and Eamonn McCabe, The Pope in Britain: The Official Record, Bodley Head, London, 1982.

Pope John Paul II visit to the UK

totus tuus

 

Further Information

 

Edward Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England, George and Allen Unwin, London, 1968

Edward Norman, Roman Catholicism in England for the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council, Oxford University Press, 1985.