One probable long-term legacy from the papal visit was not, I have to admit, one I had foreseen. As the campaign against the Pope and the Church has gathered momentum, so has a parallel campaign to defend them, whether forcefully and with no holds barred (as in the Protect the Pope website), or coherently and persuasively on the broadcast media, as with Catholic Voices: all this will, I hope, remain in place after the visit is over.
Catholic Voices is a group of orthodox Catholics whose aim is to explain the faith by exemplifying Newman’s ideal (which you will find quoted in full at the foot of each page of its website) of "a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it..."
