Peter Stanford: Pope prepares for a journey that can lay ghosts to rest and overcome the doubters

With, at best, six million Catholics, England, Wales and Scotland combined are specks in a global church of 1.2 billion souls. And then there have been all the negative headlines – a leaked Foreign Office memo, lampooning papal teachings on condoms; taxpayer protests at the 12m share of the bill the Government is picking up; apathy in Catholic parishes where tickets to the various events are reportedly going begging; and the vocal threats of a range of protesters from Peter Tatchell who sees Benedict as an anti-gay bigot, to victims of paedophile priests who feel the Pope hasn't done nearly enough to confront their abusers, to militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins who want the pontiff arrested for crimes against humanity. Even the Queen is said to be privately miffed at having to disturb her usual September retreat at Balmoral to greet Benedict in Edinburgh.

The organisers' line of defence is to stress the historic nature of Benedict's three days here. This will be the first time since the Reformation that a Pope has made a state visit and there will be a lot of symbolism around about finally laying to rest the ghosts of past religious divisions (notably when Benedict gives a speech in Westminster Hall where the Reformation martyr Thomas More was condemned).

But the distinction between a state visit – especially one where, at the Pope's insistence, there will be no procession up the Mall and no overnighting in Buckingham Palace – and the purely pastoral visit undertaken by John Paul II to Britain in 1982, including a service at York racecourse, has been lost on most of the British public. Only one in five, in a recent poll by Ipsos Mori for the Catholic weekly, the Tablet, said they would be following the visit in the media.

So what else is there to be said in favour of this costly spectacle? For Catholics (who are contributing up to 10m to the final bill), the visit of their spiritual leader is undeniably an event.

Many older believers may treasure memories of seeing John Paul in 1982 –he was, after all, altogether more of a showman than Benedict – but a new generation has grown up since then in a fast-changing Church.

And even if the scandal over the depravity of paedophile priests, and its covering-up by bishops around the world, has shaken the faith of Catholics in pews, the Church remains at heart a hierarchical organisation.

It places much emphasis on the office of Pope as its supreme leader, law-maker and as the successor of Jesus's hand-chosen first leader, Peter. Simply to be in the presence of Benedict therefore is to receive a kind of blessing.

There is also a sense of sticking together in the face of adversity prevalent among Catholics. It has its roots in the three centuries of persecution we faced following the Reformation, until religious freedom finally came in 1829. And the controversy around this visit does carry with it a distinct echo of that strain of anti-Catholicism in Britain that many believed dead and buried.

To take but one example – sketchy allegations about the Pope's

personal misconduct in handling, as a senior Vatican official, the cases of abusive priests has without much challenge been effortlessly

transformed into fact by opponents of the visit, while the human rights barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC, this week publishes a book that compares Benedict with war criminals brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague on charges of ethnic cleansing.

To read such diatribes you might easily conclude that all Catholicism ever does is oppress women, gays and the developing world. No mention is made of what (for this Catholic at least) is the essence of the faith and the positive pull of the Church – the liturgy, the sacraments, spirituality, the commitment to social justice, the condemnation of war, capital punishment and unequal global economic systems, and the loud championing of the marginalised.

So if Catholics are going to turn out to see Benedict – and after a slow start, there is now some evidence from the parishes that there is a late rush of interest in tickets, especially from the e-generation, accustomed to making plans no more than 15 minutes before going out – what response will he get from the wider British public? In that same Tablet survey, 49 per cent of those questioned (Catholic and not) said that it was, in their opinion, a good thing the Catholic Church had "strong moral views".

Moral relativism may be fashionable and convenient in these self-centred times when we are endlessly sold the idea that only a cocktail of consumerism, celebrities and capitalism will make us happy, but the economic recession has exposed a certain hollowness in the claim.

Another recent survey reported that 75 per cent of those questioned had been prompted by the financial crisis to re-evaluate their core

beliefs. Many were looking to spirituality for an alternative.

You could, therefore, argue that there has never been a better moment for a Pope to come and break the British taboo about talking of God.

n To order a copy of The Extra Mile: A 21st Century Pilgrimage by Peter Stanford (Continuum, 16.99) from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. P&P is 2.75.

Peter Stanford is a former editor of the Catholic Herald. His latest book, The Extra Mile: A 21st Century Pilgrimage, is published by Continuum (16.99).