At the first public meeting of the Protest the Pope group, there was support for an attempt to stop Benedict XVI reaching an event in London next month. The audience was told that the pontiff must travel down a narrow suburban road to reach the campus of St Mary’s University College in Twickenham, where he is due to address 3,500 school children and students “in celebration of Catholic education”.
A man calling himself Ray was applauded when he said: “Waldegrave Road is a narrow street. I don’t actually know how they intend getting the Pope in. Is he going to be helicoptered in or not? If he’s coming in by road, there’s a really good chance of blocking that road off. Let’s go for it.”
The protest group, supported by secularists and homosexual equality campaigners, also plans a march through central London and a rally near Downing Street on the day that the Pope addresses 80,000 pilgrims in Hyde Park.
It also emerged at the meeting in Richmond on Thursday night that security costs for the prayer vigil on Saturday, September 18th are estimated at £1.8million.
As it is just one of three open-air events at which Benedict XVI will appear, it means the total bill to taxpayers for security during the four-day trip, which organisers have never spelled out in public, could top £6m.
It comes on top of the £12m already earmarked by the Government for the first ever state Papal visit to Britain, and more than £7m being contributed by churchgoers towards the “pastoral” events.
Terry Sanderson, the President of the National Secular Society, said: “The security costs for the big set pieces in this visit are going to be massive. And that’s before we start on the street parades, the speech in Parliament and other functions that the Pope is planning to attend.
“The policing will dwarf all the other costs and put enormous strains on police resources and budgets. Experience of papal visits in other countries indicate that what we’ve been told about costings so far represent a fraction of the final figure which could easily exceed £100 million.”
His group has sent out Freedom of Information requests to all police forces involved in the four-day visit, which will also see the pontiff hold Mass in front of up to 100,000 in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, and beatify Cardinal Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham.
It uncovered the minutes of a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority in May, which state: “Members asked for details of cost of the forthcoming Papal visit. The Commissioner confirmed that estimated costs were £1.8 million of which approximately £0.8 would be opportunity costs. He added that at this stage these were very much early estimated costs.”
Speakers at the Protest the Pope meeting, attended by more than 60 people, insisted they were opposed to Benedict XVI himself rather than Catholics in general. The pontiff’s record on equality for women and homosexuals, contraception, clerical child abuse and democracy came under fire.
But the group also invited a lay Catholic, Neil D’Aguiar, to defend the Pope’s visit.
The event at Richmond Library was booked by the Richmond LGBT Forum, and it received a £60 discount from Richmond Council as it is a registered voluntary organisation in the borough.
Mr D’Aguiar who works as an RE teacher at a faith school, was described as “brave” for addressing the protestors and mocked by some of them.
He said a “form of misunderstanding” was behind criticisms of the Pope.