Scotland, rightly declared Alex Salmond, has done the Pope proud; he added, also truly, that Scotland had “done itself proud”, too. And that was while the Pope was still in Edinburgh, before that great and wonderful Carnival of the Faith at Bellahouston park.
Would the first day have been the success it was if it had taken place in England? Would the papal chemistry have worked so soon in London, that vast and engulfing megalopolis, if the reception by Her Majesty had taken place in the impersonal splendours of Buckingham palace rather than in that ancient architectural wonder Holyrood house (whose very stones are a testimony to its Catholic origins) and if the Popemobile ride through the streets afterwards had been down the Mall?
