Secular campaigners handed a petition to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office on Thursday protesting Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit and saying taxpayers should not foot the bill.The National Secular Society estimated the trip later this year would cost some 20 million pounds of public money and urged the government not to spend taxpayers' cash on the visit.
About 28,000 people signed the petition over three weeks, the society said.
The pope is expected to visit Glasgow and Birmingham in mid-September although dates have not yet been confirmed.
"We were astonished at the level of interest this petition generated," said the group's chief, Terry Sanderson.
"We think it goes some way to illustrate the anger and resentment many people feel at the idea of their taxes being used to import the particular brand of intolerance that the present pope embodies."
The petition states: "We the undersigned petition the prime minister to ask the Catholic Church to pay for the proposed visit of the pope to the UK and relieve the taxpayer of the estimated 20 million pound cost.
"We accept the right of the pope to visit his followers in Britain, but public money would be better spent on hard-pressed schools, hospitals and social services which are facing cuts," it says.
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SIC: AFP