TV, you have met your match. For years you have challenged our credulity, allowing us to believe that Tim Westwood and his team could transform the most decrepit cars in to the coolest cars simply by uttering the magic words, 'pimp my ride'. Westwood, I would like to introduce you to the Popemobile. Featuring a three inch composite plastic glass window able to withstand explosives, an air filtered cabin able to protect against biological and chemical weapons, a bomb proof half inch steel plate beneath the vehicle, and tyres able to run flat at speeds of up to 70mph. I challenge Westwood to do anything more spectacular to a modified Mercedes-Benz. There is no denying it; the design of the car, more officially referred to as the Papal Limousine, is impressive.

Before we go to Westwood however, begging him to Pope our ride, perhaps we should be asking ourselves: why on earth is it necessary? Considering the Pope’s announcement that he is visiting Britain to ‘extend the hand of friendship’, the fact that he needs to travel in a vehicle that would give the maker of the Batmobile an inferiority complex in order to ensure his safety is surely proof enough that the Pope has made some extremely controversial and unpopular decisions. If nothing else, the three inches of bullet proof glass are evidence that extending the hand of friendship is getting a very unfriendly reaction indeed.

Could we consider this a metaphor for the Pope’s visit overall? Perhaps the Popemobile is not so fitting a name. Mobility suggests change, development, moving forward. The opinions of Pope Benedict contradict mobility altogether, they suggest he is unwilling to make changes, and unwilling to move the Church forward despite conflicting modern ideals that are more relevant to our society. As was the fate of the city on that Thursday, is the Pope bringing Catholicism to a stand still?

The Pope’s views in our modern, secular world are causing controversy and disharmony throughout the country. Britain has been referred to as ‘the greatest secular empire that the Pope has visited to date’, with the Pope’s personal war on what he refers to as ‘aggressive secularism’. Some of the more controversial views that Benedict has expressed include the discouragement of condom use to prevent the spread of HIV, the Papal secrecy surrounding the sex abuse files connected with the Catholic Church, the subsequent ineffective punishment of the offending priests, opposition to fertility treatment, opposition to embryonic stem cell research and the belief that homosexuality and same sex marriages are ‘evil’. Many who oppose the views of the Pope would argue that modern medicine and man alike have advanced beyond many of these views. If man has the ability to move forwards, shouldn't the Church move with it?

Speaking to a crowd of 125,000 during his visit to Edinburgh on Thursday, he announced "today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate." Perhaps this is the greatest example of the controversy the visit has caused. Indeed, there were criticisms of the cost of the visit, qualms about the disruption it would cause on the actual streets, but perhaps this extract of the Pope’s public address displays a further significant problem with the papal visits; a clash in opinions. As Pope Benedict so graciously says, the United Kingdom is both modern and multicultural, but it is the opinion of many that it is not aggressive secularism that is challenging respect for traditional values, but rather the way that the values themselves clash with the society he praises. We are a modern and multicultural nation, and it is the belief of many members of our society that some of the views publicly expressed by the Pope alienate many ideals that this nation holds dear.

The United Kingdom has embraced same sex marriage. It educates its children on sexual health. It allows parents who are unable to naturally conceive the opportunity to procreate using fertility treatments. It allows stem cell research to prevent motor neurone diseases, because it is both modern and multicultural, as Pope Benedict rightly says. In this multicultural society we embrace Catholicism as part of many faiths, maintaining respect for traditional values of worship, and allowing the freedom to practice religion. It is not a refusal to respect traditional views, it is merely that the nation’s capacity to modernise contradicts it. What he recognises as ‘aggressive secularism’ a clash between modernity and tradition. Inevitably, certain aspects of society have changed from the establishment of Catholicism. Freedom of speech is incredibly important, thus the Pope must be allowed a platform to express his views, but it is equally wrong to applaud modernity and then dismiss the progress that it naturally produces.

If modernity breeds progress where tradition cannot, why not embrace it? If we have found a way to prevent and protect against disease, to allow happiness to be found regardless of sexuality, to create a society that truly is multicultural and modern, then I find myself asking, is there any way that modernity and tradition can exist together?

As buses, cars and trains came to a halt on Thursday to welcome the Pope, it struck me. In this modern world, with the very modern Popemobile, will certain views inevitably come to the same standstill? Have we reached a point in time where the world has moved so far forward that we are leaving the traditional values so far behind that it would be impossible to catch up? In less recent times, Papal visits were an entirely different matter. Popes were carried by a team of bearers on an elaborate chair known as the ‘sedia gestatoria’. Today, a Mercedes-Benz with James Bond level protection is escorting around the Catholic leader. Yes, the man is modern, but mobility is another matter.