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This thread is looking decidedly lonely, so allow me to do a Hawking and "bring something out of nothing"...

The poor old Pope hasn't even turned up yet, and we're all bored to tears with the subject. As it says in William's post: "... the British public is disengaged rather than hostile to the papal visit." Which I find rather amusing, since if we are bored with the Pope, we are also likely to be even more bored with those protesting against his visit!

Sorry LucyQ (but have a nice trip anyway)!

maybe, just maybe, people are waking up......at last.....possibly! :-)

I have just been watching the programme about Francis Campbell, British ambassador to the Vatican. If I understood a reference correctly then the Pope's visit is taking place in response to an invitation by the British Government. If that is the case then surely it's usual to pay for one's guest.

Parrhasios,

I agree that we should pay for our guests, but other guests do not hold mass rallies which cost a fortune to police.

If he is here as head of state of the Vatican City, then why would he hold these open air events. The church should pay for the security of those events as they are pastoral not state. That would reduce the bill to the taxpayer considerably.

As he is coming as head of state I hope he abides by protocol which means he should not be criticising laws etc. in the UK.

The Pope is head of a Church that has billions of pounds in assets - taxpayers should not be paying for matters associated with his preaching in the UK: it is sponging of the highest order. I would much prefer to see the millions of pounds this visit is costing taxpayers go towards compensating victims of clerical abuse rather than go towards the Pope's security costs.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination either a Vatican apologist or a benediktophil but it appears this visit was very much the idea of the last British Government who in fact lobbied extensively to bring it about. The Vatican merely acceded to British requests so it is either ill-informed or disingenuous to seek place responsibility for the financing of the event anywhere other than with the Government.

Parrhasios,

I am not sure that he was invited here to carry out a beatification or to hold mass rallies, that would be inappropriate for the British Government to be involved in requesting.

The nearest analogy I can think of is that if I travel to say New York on business and decide to take advantage of the trip by making a 2 day detour to Niagara to see the Falls, as I have done, I expect my company to pay the legitimate business expenses for the task which they have asked me to do and for me to pay the expenses associated with my personal recreational decisions.

There is nothing wrong with the catholic church adding a few pastoral things onto the state part of the visit as long as they pay for the pastoral bits including security.

If I take your logic then we should not be expecting the church to make any contribution, but we are and it is the financing of these pastoral events which they are paying for. I think we should not be picking up the tab for the security as well.

Although since this has had the effect of holding this company up to the spotlight and exposing it and its chief exective to public scrutiny, and since it is already a source of acute embarrassment to the Board of Directors that even the loyalty-card-carrying customers are seeing behind the scam and leaving in droves, one COULD argue that it is money well spent. All in all, if there are fewer children being born into households describing themselves as "Catholic" and far far fewer impressionable, confused and slightly unhinged young men entering wholly inappropriate orders, then there will at the very least be significantly less child abuse by this organisation, fewer corporate cover-ups, and an altogether more healthy public oversight of the romancatholicchurch.com.

Cheap at the price.

I understand that tickets are being sold for the services being held. If this is so, where are the proceeds going to? Not toward the security costs I'll bet.
If the catholic church gave away just one percent of it's wealth to the third world,(and I have just heard on the news that Britain has been called a third world country by one the cardinals), famine and poverty would die out overnight.
I have yet to see a poor catholic cathederal in the many cities I have visited. They are mostly covered in gold, whilst the people are covered in rags - partly through paying for the upkeep of this golden edifice.