Paper Tiger Protestors?

The  Los Angeles Times , not a paper outwardly friendly to the Church, has  commented on the pope’s tour through Scotland: “More than 100,000 well-wishers greeted Benedict as he travelled the streets of Edinburgh in his specially designed Popemobile, with his shoulders wrapped in a green Tartan scarf. Scattered protests made hardly a dent in the larger din of cheers and applause.”

What’s this?  Large crowds for the papal  visit? Cheers for Benedict? Protests against him fizzling out ? That wasn’t supposed to be the secularist narrative, was it?

Over at  America magazine’s  blog , one poster wonders whether the much-heralded protestors are really paper tigers: “According to the website of the British Humanist Association (BHA), its membership in 2010 is 4,100.” Given its underwhelming numbers, why are any of us fretting over its predictable opposition to the Pope? The group is  now upset that Benedict criticized atheism, but “even if the Pope had not made reference to atheism and Nazism,” continued the poster, “the BHA would have found something nasty to say. The crowd of 125,000 in Edinburgh is far more eloquent and significant than the mutterings of the BHA.”