Introduction: Analysing Religious Conflict

Abstract

On 16 September 2010 Queen Elizabeth II received Pope Benedict XVI at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh at the beginning of his state visit to Britain. The meeting of these two redoubtable octogenarians prompted many thoughts on the difference that long passages of time can make. Seventy years before, as the Battle of Britain raged over southeast England, it is hard to imagine that the teenage Princess Elizabeth would have received the teenage Josef Ratzinger with such warmth, reluctant recruit to the Hitler Youth though he was. Echoes of religious rather than national tensions loomed rather larger, however. Four and a half centuries before, Holyrood Palace had been the scene of some of the pivotal events of the Scottish Reformation, culminating in the deposition of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. Even in the later nineteenth century, it would have been inconceivable for Queen Victoria to have received Pius IX or Leo XIII on such terms and in such a location. True, there were discordant notes, such as the absence of both the first minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, and his deputy Martin McGuinness, the former apparently reluctant to greet the pope and the latter unwilling to be seen with the queen. Meanwhile, the previous first minister, Ian Paisley, was indeed present in Edinburgh, but leading protests against the visit rather than joining the welcoming party. Nevertheless the dominant message of the day was that Protestant-Catholic conflict was no longer an issue.1