This morning the pope carried out one of the central purposes of his visit when some 55,000 people joined him under grey skies for a mass to beatify the 19th century ecclesiastic, theologian and poet Cardinal John Henry Newman. The German-born pope noted it was Battle of Britain day, praising the UK for "courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology".
Addressing Catholic bishops at nearby Oscott College, he spoke for only the second time about Britain's economic and social difficulties. He said the global financial crisis had caused "hardship to countless individuals and families", adding: "The spectre of unemployment is casting its shadow over many people's lives, and the long-term cost of the ill-advised investment practices of recent times is becoming all too evident."
David Cameron this evening thanked Pope Benedict at the end of his historic UK visit for an "incredibly moving four days for our country" which had created a "challenge to us all to follow our conscience". But the prime minister also signalled a significant difference between himself and the pope over thinking on levels of secularity in the UK, saying that faith was "part of the fabric of our country" and that the trip had offered a message for people of "every faith and none".
Cameron spoke at Birmingham airport before the pope, who had warned of the dangers of "aggressive forms of secularism" and faithlessness, returned to Rome at the end of a visit packed with excitement, enthusiasm and tension in which the leader of the world's Roman Catholics was both challenging and challenged. Four days after his arrival in Edinburgh, opinions about the ideas of the leader of the world's Roman Catholics were as polarised as before, if not more so, but the pope had succeeded in his aim of prompting reflection on some fundamental political and religious questions, notably the extent to which the British want faith to play a role in public life.
