The National Secular Society has called on the Foreign Secretary not to pump any more taxpayers’ money into funding the Pope’s visit to Britain in September. The plea comes after news that the Church has grossly underestimated the costs of the religious elements of the trip, events which it has agreed to fund itself.
The Catholic journalist Damian Thompson has revealed in the Spectator that the Church has revised the estimated cost of the pastoral elements of the visit from £7 million to £14 million.
The article talks of scaling back the events.
It also reveals disarray among organisers as major venues, such as Coventry Airport and Hyde Park in London, have not been confirmed.
All mention of Coventry Airport has now disappeared from the official site of the papal visit, and it has now been suggested that the beatification ceremony should be held in the grounds of St Mary’s Seminary in Oscott near Sutton Coldfield.
The capacity of Oscott is 10,000, compared with 200,000 at Coventry Airport.
According to the Spectator, the Pope will not actually be attending the state banquet in his honour at Lancaster House which is to be hosted by the Prime Minister.
The collection at Catholic churches around the country last weekend was also a disaster, as the Gift Aid envelopes failed to arrive in many parishes in time for the collection.
The Vatican is reportedly defiant that there must be no scaling back, but not made any suggestion as to how the Church will fund the cost hike.
This has prompted the President of the National Secular Society, Terry Sanderson, to write to William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, demanding that the taxpayer not be made the scapegoat for the Church’s profligacy and inefficiency. Mr Sanderson wrote:
“We are writing to ask that the taxpayer is not put in the position of having to pick up this deficit. The Catholic Church should be told that, if it wishes the visit to go ahead, it must make the same kind of sacrifices that the rest of the country must in the current financial climate.
In February the National Secular Society delivered a petition of 28,000 names to Downing Street. These names were collected in the space of three weeks, which gives some indication of the level of resentment at the public funding being allotted to this visit.
We have yet to be told how much the security for these events is going to cost the police services. If visits to other countries are anything to go by, these costs will far outweigh other expenditure.
We are strongly requesting that no further money be poured into this event. If the Church cannot afford to pay for these planned extravaganzas, then they must be cut back to a level that it can afford. It is not the British taxpayers duty to pick up the tab for an organisation that is, arguably, the most wealthy in the world.”
SIC: NSS