A team of British civil servants charged with overseeing Pope Benedict’s visit to their country in September seems to have treated the whole event as a huge joke.
In a memo leaked to the Sunday Telegraph the team, under the heading, “Ideal Visit”, suggested that the Pope open an abortion clinic, launch “Benedict condoms” and bless a gay marriage. The paper was apparently the result of a brainstorming exercise and was circulated by a young Foreign Office official who has now been transferred to “other duties”.
Reaction from senior civil servants has been swift and the British Ambassador to the Vatican immediately apologised on Britain’s behalf. In Britain, the Catholic Church in Scotland has accused the Foreign Office of showing disrespect to the Pope whilst the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, The Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon, has called the memo “appalling”. The Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy, is responsible for the Papal Visit to Britain and has said that the contents of the memo are “despicable”.
British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has also said that he is appalled by the memo. Meanwhile the Vatican appears genuinely puzzled by the memo and warned last night that the visit could be cancelled.
There have been protests about the Papal visit in Britain, largely because of the Vatican’s perceived failure to act regarding sex scandals involving Catholic priests but also because of the amount of money that will be spent on the visit. Many of Britain’s four million Catholics, however, are hoping that the visit will help to heal the damage done to their Church by the sex abuse cases, especially if the Pope meets some of the British victims.
This morning the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Federico Lombardi, said that, as far as the Vatican is concerned, the "case is closed" regarding the visit, meaning that it will go ahead as scheduled.
Do you think the visit should go ahead?
What do you think should happen to the civil servant responsible for the memo?
