The King can offer leadership in a world that seems hostile to faith, says James Somerville-Meikle
In his Journal of a Soul, Pope John XXIII noted on April 29, 1903 that “just now Rome is officially celebrating the arrival of Edward VII, King of England”. The young Angelo Roncalli was at seminary in Rome at the time, but he was clearly not impressed by the pomp and pageantry of the visit. “I too saw the King; but all the commotion irritated me and made me sad,” he wrote.
He described the visit as “a glorious page in the history of the Roman pontificate; a highly significant event this, of a heretical King of Protestant England, which has persecuted the Catholic Church for more than three centuries, going in person to pay his respects to the poor old Pope”.
