Government gives in to Pope’s pressure – and prepares to subsidise visit

An attack by the Pope on the Government’s Equality Bill sparked a major reaction in Britain this week, as outrage was expressed at the Vatican’s blatant attempt to interfere in this country’s domestic politics.

The Government announced that it will leave in place the deeply damaging amendments that were made, at the behest of religious bodies, to the Bill during its passage through the House of Lords.

The Daily Telegraph quoted a Downing Street spokesman as saying: “We are clear that these parts of the Equality Bill should not go forward. The Pope’s intervention has been noted.” However, whatever impression The Telegraph or the Government were trying to give, the decision was made before the Pope’s intervention.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: “The changes forced by the religious lobby have removed wording designed to bring UK law into line with the EU Employment Directive. The wording was inserted following censure by the European Commission prompted by a complaint made to them by the NSS. In conceding these changes, albeit we accept they may be powerless to resist, the Government is now on a collision course with the European Commission. This could lead to the Government facing prosecution by the European Court of Justice.”

Meanwhile, controversy rages about the cost of the Pope’s visit. An estimate of £20 million (based on the cost of similar visits to other countries) will be picked up by the taxpayer.

The National Secular Society announced that it intended to organise protests during the visit and launched an online petition which has taken on a life of its own – at present there are over 14,000 signatures on it. If you haven't already, sign it here.

According to the Catholic Herald, Church officials have expressed concern that they might be expected to pick up some of the cost. The Church assumes that the public funding will cover most of the expenses such as security, given that it was Gordon Brown who extended the invitation in the first place. But Church and Government officials are currently negotiating how other costs will be apportioned. A Church spokesman told the Catholic Herald: “We are now in a situation where we don’t know who’s paying for it. It’s not in the Government Budget [and] is probably going to cost the Church about £3m to £6m.”

The Church says it might be able to finance some of the trip through sales of merchandise and big donations and collections. They are right to be worried – the last papal visit in 1982 was a “pastoral” rather than “state” and left the Church deep in debt. However, there is also a suspicion that beginning the “we can’t afford it” chant at this early stage of negotiations, the Church hopes to strong-arm the Government into picking up the whole tab.

However, the Herald newspaper in Scotland reported a Church source saying that the Pope would arrive in Edinburgh on 16 September where he will meet the Queen on a visit “which, crucially, had been instigated and would be paid for by the Westminster government”.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “The Vatican is one of the wealthiest organisations in the world and is there any wonder when it drains money from the public purse wherever it goes. Britain is a country only just emerging from a frighteningly deep recession. It faces years of public service cuts that will hurt the most vulnerable people in society. But still it feels it’s OK to let the Vatican dip into its exchequer in order to bring into this country a man whose bigotry is deeply repellent to so many people. It is not too late for the Government to rethink this entirely inappropriate use of scarce public money.”

Meanwhile, hostility grows to the papal interference in British politics. Labour MEP Stephen Hughes said the Pope should apply European equality rules on his own doorstep instead of attacking equality in the UK.

Mr Hughes said: “As a Catholic, I am appalled by the attitude of the Pope. Religious leaders should be trying to eradicate inequality, not perpetuate it. Inequality is at the root of many social problems. Instead of criticising the UK's plans to improve its legislation, the Pope should ensure that existing EU legislation is properly applied in the Vatican.”

Several newspapers have carried articles critical of the Pope’s comments. In an editorial, The Guardian said: “This week the pope made another of those statements which almost suggest he has got his scripture mangled with the Daily Mail”. In the Times, Martin Salter wrote: “Personally, I find the hypocrisy of the Pope reprehensible, especially in a leader of a Church that internationally covered up its own institutionalised abuse. Who can forget the revelations that shocked the world – of young children’s lives ruined by paedophile priests, whose antics were ignored by the higher echelons of the holy orders? Far too often a blind eye was turned to these monsters who were quietly moved on to another diocese and, on occasion, continued their abuse of vulnerable children in yet another community.” Mr Salter, who is Labour MP for Reading West, is standing down at the next election.

Writing on the STV website, Martin Coyle said: “If religion is going to take a role in modern civic society, then there has to be an understanding that one particular dogma isn’t always going to win out, and ride roughshod over other people’s sensibilities. It’s legislation, such as the equality laws, that ensure that different opinions and views are respected and given equal credence. Pope Benedict grew up in Germany in the 1930s and saw exactly what intolerance leads to – there’s no need for that to spread again.”

The Morning Star editorialised: “The Catholic Church is shaping up for a confrontation with civil authority over its attitude to homosexuality and, as is usual, is claiming the moral high ground in that confrontation. It must be made clear to the Pope and his officers in this country that, far from occupying the moral high ground in this case, the official attitude of their church should be a cause for shame and embarrassment to them, as it is for many thousands of British Catholics who hold an opposing and more civilised view.”

The London Evening Standard said: “Few people will welcome the spectacle of the leader of what is, in England and Wales, a small religious minority throwing his weight around to alter laws being voted on by the nation's elected representatives”.

Adam Knowles, chair of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, said: “The Pope maintains the slightly surreal stance that if religious bodies are not allowed to discriminate against others, then they are themselves being discriminated against. This logic belongs in Alice in Wonderland, not in British or European Law.”