Three Popes, Buddhism, Bono & Catholic Romances
A post-Buddhist reflects on some papal connections
The Catechism
Q. and A. come back. They 'formed my mind'.
'Who is my neighbour?' 'My neighbour is all mankind'.
Seamus Heaney, from Ten Glosses.
i
I didn't think I would like the 2019 film The Two Popes. I'm not a fan of Popes. But, good reviews, a friend’s recommendation and the paring of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce as co-lead roles led me to have a look. I loved the film, the production, and the quality of Anthony McCarten's screenplay.
I have an uneasy relationship with 'religion', swinging from aversion, to indifference, to curiosity and back again. I don't like dogma, but I do see the necessity for some sort of structural support for spiritual aspiration, for a working conceptual framework, for a place to meet ritual need, and as a gathering point of collective support. Unfortunately the corruption, abuses of power and psychological manipulation evident in so many religious institutions are so antithetical to anything I would consider 'divine', that I have remained sceptical and wary. Having said that, I was ordained into a Buddhist Order for around twenty years. I worked in urban Buddhist Centres, rural retreat centres, helped set up the vegan Earth Cafe in Manchester, contributed reviews, articles and poems to the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona, and in 2003 published a book Verses of Inspiration: From the Buddha's Udana. I spent over three years living a monastic lifestyle in the mountains of the Valencia region of Spain. Was all that a ‘religious’ lifestyle? Maybe.
ii
When I moved to Spain, in December 1993, I drove from England, down through France, with a friend. We stopped over in Chartres to admire the famous Rose Windows. Then I spent a night on my own in a retreat hut at La Serpent, in the Aude area of Southern France. It was owned by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, head of the Sufi Order International and managed by a friend of mine living in nearby Limoux.
The next day I say farewell to my friends, cross the Pyrenean border alone and spend the night in a hotel near Montserrat, the enchanting serrated mountain range in Catalonia. I visit the famous Benedictine Abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, climb the well trodden steps at the back of the altar end of the church and find myself face to face with La Moreneta, 'The Black Madonna'. She's behind a protective glass screen, yet her hand, holding the sphere of the universe, projects out of a hole in the glass, welcoming pilgrims to receive her blessing. My rational mind spins, 'I'm a Buddhist on my way to live in a Buddhist monastery. Why am I transfixed by this Marian magic?' The power of archetypal symbol, the ancient call to ritual beyond reason, the trans-Catholic catechism of the soul. I briefly touch the orb.
The following day I stay at the Hotel Vernissa, Xàtiva, in the province of Valencia. I discover it is the birthplace of two popes: Callixtus III and Alexander VI. It is New Year’s Eve. In the evening, I climb up the slope of Monte Vernissa, above the town. I sit by the castle walls to watch and listen to the life below slipping into 1994. I drop into in a magical space, that liminal interstice of a journey, the incognito of the unknown. The town isn’t making a big fuss. On my way back to my hotel I wander into the large Colegiata Basilica. A microphone amplified voice booms out Mass to the few elderly devoted Catholics in the front few rows of an otherwise empty church. 'Does God have to be so loud?' I think. A standing Madonna in a powder-blue backlit niche catches my eye, and for a while I find myself transfixed by her beauty and compassion. Our Lady of Sorrows. Her message doesn’t need amplification. Even a kitsch tear on her cheek makes the point. A black Madonna; a blue Madonna. If Christianity is ever to speak to me it will probably always be through the contemplative, the mystical and the feminine archetypes.
All was fairly quiet on New Years Day as I pulled into Guhyaloka, the ‘secret realm’, my new home, several miles up a windy, rocky, track above the nearest small town of Sella. Building work was in progress: a stone porch for the shrine room and a kitchen extension. Extensive scrub clearing had been done and passed by the local fire board. The atmosphere was calm and welcoming. I took my bags out of the car and sat down in my accommodation: a small arched hut, made from earth filled onion sacks and plastered with white Yeso. Big enough to fit two single beds and a wood burning stove. I took a deep breath.
iii
In 1994 Pope John Paul II published a book called Crossing the Threshold of Hope. He received a multimillion dollar advance for the book which was an international bestseller. Out of curiosity, whilst on retreat in those Spanish mountains, sitting amongst the Moorish almond and olive terraces, I read the book. I was shocked by his misrepresentation of Buddhism. I wrote a peeved review for our Buddhist Order Journal.
The Pope, having straightforwardly acknowledged that "the doctrines of salvation in Buddhism and in Christianity are opposed", then goes on to criticise the Buddhist doctrine of salvation. It seems that the Pope's overriding conclusion is that Buddhism has "an almost exclusively negative soteriology". Negative soteriology, in this context, implies two things: firstly that the "world is bad" and secondly that salvation lies in a breaking away or a detachment from that "bad" world. The Pope goes on to argue that the Buddhist path must then involve becoming "indifferent to the world". He continues to describe Buddhism in this rather misleading and narrow way for the rest of the section.
The idea of the world being 'good' or 'bad' would have been out of the question for the Buddha, he did not see the need to label the world in that way, in fact he probably would have seen it as an unnecessary debate that would detract from the real issues of the spiritual life. He saw that the world is conditioned and that it arises in dependence upon skilful or unskilful karmic forces or volitional urges. The skilful forces are rooted in generosity, compassion and wisdom and lead to true satisfaction. The unskilful forces are rooted in greed, hatred and delusion and lead to suffering. The Buddha's starting point was not an abstract idea that the world is "bad" but simply the raw existential fact that there is suffering. He then went on to teach a path from that suffering. That (metaphorical) path is not a path away from a "bad" world but a path from unskilful mental states to progressively more and more skilful ones. What is more, it is clear in the Buddhist teachings that we need support in the world, indeed that there is support in the world. We need our spiritual friends, spiritual institutions, perhaps even the inspiration of art, the refinement of literature, and the beauty of nature. Yet of course in a sense we do need to withdraw; not from a "bad" world but from the things that hold us back, from the things that distract us from our true goal, from our own negative propensities or our own unskilful habits which cause ourselves and others suffering.
The Pope's disingenuous distortion of Buddhism was widely criticised in the Buddhist world and across different schools of Buddhism. He never retracted his stance despite being lobbied to do so. Millions of Catholics were given a deliberately false and negative view of Buddhism. How compassionate, how kind, how Christian, how catechistic.
iv
I tried the lay and the monk lifestyles. I learnt much, grew to some extent, fell down, got up again, but after twenty years of meditation and practice, I realised I was at a dead end. I felt burdened, trapped, unhappy and confused. Far from spiritual enlightenment. It took me a while to realise that I had taken on an identity, I was trying to be something I thought I was supposed to be. I was being a 'good Buddhist', but I wasn't really being myself. I had to let go. Resigning from my community was a hard decision. I was having to walk away from the primary context for my life. There was a lot of fear in that process. But when I did finally make the leap in 2010, with quite a bit of therapy and coaching, the liberation was exhilarating. The most Buddhist thing I ever did was to stop being a Buddhist.
v
The Two Popes film traces the unlikely friendship of the conservative, German, Pope Benedict XVI with the future, reforming and more liberal, Argentinian, Pope Francis. In one of my favourite scenes from the film the two popes are watching the 2014 World Cup football final between Argentina and Germany. Francis, a big football fan, is wearing his pale blue and white Argentina scarf. Benedict, initially doubtful as to the value of such activity, reluctantly admits he's enjoying it. For a moment they are just two friends, debating the game, having a beer and riding the ups and downs of the match. The final humorous irony is Benedict's national country winning with Mario Götze's goal in extra time.
The main narrative of the Two Popes story concerns religious resignation. The twist is that Francis, or Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, as he was, is in Rome to get permission from Benedict to resign from his post in Buenos Aires. He's disillusioned with the Catholic Church, haunted by some painful mistakes in the past and just wants to be a humble priest, working for the poor and for the local good. What he doesn’t know is that Benedict himself wants to resign as Pope and thinks Bergoglio would be the ideal replacement. The revelation takes place in the Sistine Chapel, another favourite scene, as Benedict shares that he has never been in there on his own. Of course, Benedict resigns and Bergoglio becomes Pope Francis. Perhaps the most papal thing Pope Benedict XVI ever did was to stop being the Pope.
vi
Pope Benedict XVI was the papal successor to Pope John Paul II. I was at Dzogchen Beara, a Tibetan Buddhist Retreat Centre, on the cliffs of Bantry Bay, County Cork, Ireland, when I happened to catch the front page news that Pope John Paul II had died on 2nd April 2005.
I reflected that I was only a few feet away from him, 23 years earlier, when he drove past in his British built Leyland bullet-proof 'popemobile' at Heaton Park in Manchester, on 31st May 1982. I took a quick snapshot.
I was there with my girlfriend, Julie, the eldest of five siblings from a North Shropshire, working class, Catholic family. Over 200,000 people, cheering, banner waving and then celebrating mass from an open-air specially constructed altar. It was an odd experience for me, an only child, from a tame Church of England middle-class background, who kept feeling he was at Glastonbury Festival and hoping the main band would come on soon. A photograph from the Manchester Evening News shows the papal gig looking not dissimilar to a festival concert. Even the elevated altar echoes the pyramidal structure of the famous Glastonbury main stage.
vii
Three weeks later, I was with a couple of friends, Mike and Phil, amongst the 25,000 crowd at Glastonbury Festival 1982 - only a tenth of the size of the audience witnessing Pope headlining at Heaton Park. It was a particularly muddy festival with lots of bad weather. In fact, the highest rainfall for a single day in 45 years was recorded on the Friday. Stoned, I remember very little of a bill including Van Morrison, Judie Tzuke, Jackson Browne, Roy Harper, Richie Havens and Aswad.
U2 were on the poster, but didn't play. Michael Eavis, who runs and organizes Glastonbury festival, discussed how they ended up on the poster in his book, Glastonbury 50: The Official Story of Glastonbury Festival.
I prematurely put them on the poster in 1982, when I was misled by the doorman at the Portobello Hotel who said he knew them really well and could book them, which, of course, turned out to be wishful thinking.
The doorman at the Portobello Hotel?
viii
The Portobello Hotel, at 22 Stanley Gardens, Notting Hill, in London, was indeed home from home for U2 in the early 80s. It was a popular stopping off place for many stars including Alice Cooper, Patti Smith, Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, Manumission, Blur and Van Morrison.
The so called ‘doorman’ at The Portobello Hotel in 1982 was Wilf Walker. He was actually much more than that. He was upset and offended when he found out that Michael Eavis had reduced his status. It goes to show how white people see us, he retorted. He was actually the night manager of the Hotel and also Chair of the 1981 Notting Hill Carnival. He introduced Eavis to U2 manager Paul McGuinness; Bono wasn't sociable, but he was on friendly terms with Adam Clayton. Walker booked Richie Havens for the 1982 festival and he knew Arabella Churchill from when she promoted the 1st Glastonbury fayre with the pyramid stage from her Portobello Road base.
Wilf Walker is a key figure in Notting Hill cultural history. He came to Notting Hill from Trinidad via Shepherds Bush in 1961. He promoted early gigs at Acklam Hall under the Westway and later worked with Gil Scott Heron, Taj Mahal, Richie Havens, Abdulla Abraham, Aswad, Curtis Mayfield, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Misty in Roots. As a community activist, he organised the Notting Hill Carnival outdoor stages and in 1979 was chairman of the Carnival.
Walker would have known U2 from the Portobello Hotel, but they also played at Acklam Hall on 19th March 1980, on a bill with Virgin Prunes and Berlin as part of The Sounds of Ireland Festival. Wilf Walker wasn't the main promoter for that gig, but he may have been aware that four days later U2 signed their International deal with Island records in, The Portobello Hotel.
Maybe U2 didn't make the 1982 Glastonbury Festival for various reasons. They had quite a lot of business to sort out around that time. Bono was preparing for his marriage to Alison Stewart on 21st August and the band were gearing up for a European tour starting on 1st July. Their manager Paul McGuinness recalled:
In 1982 I was looking for the perfect tour manager for U2. I arranged to meet Robbie McGrath who had been the tour manager and sound engineer for the Boomtown Rats. The meeting was arranged for the Portobello Hotel in Notting Hill, but Robbie didn’t show up. He got a better offer or changed his mind. He sent Dennis Sheehan along instead. I was a bit annoyed with Robbie but I didn’t take it out on Dennis. I hired him on the spot. That was 25 years ago. He's the best in the world. (PLSN Magazine Vol 9.9 OCTOBER 2008)
U2 continued to use the hotel throughout the 1980s. In 1989 Damon Albarn was forming Blur, with friends from Goldsmith's College of Art. To pay the bills, he worked as a barman at the Portobello Hotel for about a year. In Julian Mash’s Portobello Road: Lives Of A Neighbourhood, he recalls,
It was interesting because there were lots of very famous people staying up all night and I was barman and I had to give room service and all that. So it was a great education for me.
And in the March 1996 edition of Q Magazine he says:
Always be pleasant to people, because you never know when you’ll meet them again. I worked in the bar in the Portobello Hotel when U2 used to stay there a lot and one night Bono was really rude to me and I’ve never really forgiven him. The Edge, on the other hand, was always really polite.
ix
I'm sure Bono was perfectly polite when he had his two papal encounters. He, along with Bob Geldof, Quincy Jones and economics professor Jeffrey Sachs met John Paul II in September 1999, at the Pope's summer residence, Castel Gandolfo south of Rome, as part of a delegation to ask for support for a project to reduce Third World debt. On that occasion Bono presented the Pope with a deluxe edition of the collected works of Seamus Heaney. He also handed the Pope his wrap around sunglasses. Apparently the Pope did try them on.
Bono met Pope Francis at The Vatican in September 2018. An informal short meeting during which they addressed the revelations of extensive sexual abuse in the church.
A clever and effective scene from The Two Popes shows Pope Benedict XVI asking Cardinal Bergoglio to receive his confession. We only hear the first line or two of his confession as the sound blurs to an inaudible muffle. But the implication is that the Pope is confessing that he has known about the abuse in the church for a while and didn't do anything about it. When the sound returns to normal, Benedict lets out a sigh of relief. He's shared the painful truth. Bergoglio, the future Pope, knows it is only the beginning of a sinister institutional problem of which a conversation with Bono is only a very small contribution towards healing.
x
On the morning of Pope John Paul's visit to Manchester he landed by helicopter in the grounds of the Convent of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, on Scholes Lane in Prestwich. After overseeing the Heaton Park mass, he returned to Nazareth House Convent for a meal of local black pudding, roast beef, Polish beer and apple tart. He then flew in his helicopter straight to Knavesmire Racecourse in York, where more than 200,000 people were gathered.
As he flew away from the nuns and the people of Manchester, how much did he know, or admit to himself the extent of institutional, emotional and sexual abuse in his house of God? Nazareth House was an orphanage and children's home and later a care home for the elderly. The Sisters of Nazareth, an international organisation, was on the end of serious abuse allegations in 1998. The inquiries went on for over thirty years, culminating in the organisation finally making a formal apology, at the Northern Ireland Assembly, in March 2022. Survivors and families felt it was too little, too late and too empty of insight into the dark truth.
Yes, I have an uneasy relationship with 'religion'. Too much hypocrisy, denial, control and arrogant hierarchy, still.
xi
I didn't know her then, but on 31st May 1982, my present partner, Rachel, was at the Knavesmire Racecourse in York, with her family. They were witnessing the Pope arriving from the Manchester scene, which I had been party to only a few hours earlier. It was a few days before her 13th birthday. She's the eldest daughter from a large, Yorkshire born, Catholic family of girls. She's no longer a Catholic, she's just as wary and critical of 'religion' as me. If we have a religion at all, it's a religion of mysterious connectedness. The narrative of a papal helicopter creating a linking story-arc between us, over time, carries more spiritual significance than any sermon from the mouth of a priest. We connect through story, curiosity and enquiry. We watched The Two Popes together. We liked it.