In not wanting The Pope to visit uk at the taxpayers expense?

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Apparently The visit wil cost 12m pounds. That's 12 million pounds to be pinched from other budgets. For a man who has been responsible for covering up crimes against children.

My MP will receive an email today and I will make my abhorrence very clear.

Yes, and also we are talking about child abuse and not just paedophilia.

The physical and emotional child abuse, systematically carried out against even very children is just as horrifying.

The problem with any thread trying to discuss this issue is that Catholics come on and say thay they have been accused of being paedophiles when they haven't, and the thread gets deralied and there is no useful or sensible discussion.

Then they say, "Well, we didn;t know either"

The point is, you do now. ANd people are still going to church and handing over their collections and talking about a few bad apples - when in fact this is a scandal that goes right to the top of the Church. I am not saying that the top of the church are all paedophiles. What I am saying is that the all, to a man, knew about it, and, to protect themselves and the image of the chirch, covered it up, protected the guilty and abandoned the victims. And I cannot understand why the Catholic laity is not overcome with outrage and fury and demanding action.

I'll always remember one day, we were at the beach in Aberdeen with the nuns.
There was an outbreak of jellyfish and we were told to get out of the water.
Several children in the home had polio, and one girl's caliper came loose and it fell into the water.
One of the nuns sent her back into the sea to get it. She drowned. She was only 8.
We were warned never to talk about it amongst ourselves or to 'outsiders'. I had a big mouth and told someone at school. I was locked in the crypt for a week with the coffins and dead nuns.

Absolutely not, no we shouldn't. What a stupid waste of money for a bit of minority interest sport. The church should pay for its own security. We are not even a 'Catholic Country'.

Average catholics did know Grimma, but no one could speak out agaisnts the church, and I feel too many catholics still have this mentality.

The church must be protected that is the most imporatant belief.

Some of the orders in Ireland who ran the schools or homes that systematically abused children, in every way that abuse is possible, still refuse to acknowledge this or adress thier victims.

let's not pretend the catholic church's issues were about a few bad apples. It was much more widespread than that and involved a huge cover up and silent collusion from the long suffering church members.

LOL Kerry..

And I cannot understand why the Catholic laity is not overcome with outrage and fury and demanding action.

From what I read, a lot of them are... except what are they really supposed to do? The leadership isn't elected. Most of their parish priests are blameless so who do they get furious with? Of course in a normal organization there would be boycotts and resignation of membership but the RC has a peculiarly insidious grip on the faithful.

It will be interesting to see the balance of support and protest when the Pope visits (not interesting enough for the price tag!)

no, the taxpayer should not foot the bill for any state visits such as these, imo.

Majoriew what a horrifying story.

even more horrifying as we know it's just one story amongst thousands and we can't pretend she was just one evil nun.

Kerry, we'll gladly keep the Queen if you'll take the pope off our hands.

Though I gather he's not entirely popular in Ireland either.

Hey, but if the queens visit only costs 8M euro, how come its loads more for the pope? She's a bona fide Head of State and a head of a church.

I've never protested against anything but I will happily take part in an anti pope demonstration.

I'm not anti Catholic per se. Just anti religion.

You know what? I think all Heads of State should stay at home. Their security overseas is a rubbish way to spend money we haven't got.

Ex PMs making millions shouldn't have their security paid for by taxpayers either unless they are clearly doing something useful and really have to go to a danger zone.

OP this does seem like a bit of a no brainer doesn't it?

If any of us were budgeting we'd cut back on non-essentials, like having your mates come round at your expense, not looking after the health of family members or education.

From this thread it's obvious that we're going even further as the Pope is not synonomous with a mate. He's the bad guy who we don't like one bit.

I think the question should be more along the lines of how can we postpone or do away with this non-essential visit by the pope and spend our cash on things the UK actually needs.

Does anyone know how we would go about such a thing?

I personally liked the "lets do it by video conference instead"!

Wouldn't it be the Christian thing for the Pope to do, to gracefully decline the invitation on the grounds of the hardships to which the expense will put the UK?

Queenie's visit to Canada is costing their tax payers 9 million. Why can't all these figure heads stay home and those who want to see them can go to Rome or Windsor or whereever and save lots of dosh and lots of hot air.

I agree in this climate it would be prudent to cancel all state visits. It does seem very extravagant when we're all cutting back.

Unfortunatley Pluperfect, were the Pope to gracefully decline it would be seen as a huge snub to the UK and he would be greatly critised. He can't win either way.

Erm kerry, I can accept that the Queen is ours (whether we like it or not ) but why would Ireland want to claim the Pope as theirs

It's not a national issue - that is what annoys people I think. He's not a head of state - or not a head of a state most people recognise. He's the head of a religion - and many people would just as happily pray to the fairies at the bottom of their garden as him.

Battery - AFAIK the Queen is still the head of state in Canada (and Australia) so she's theirs as much as ours. She's not visiting as a foreign head of state so it's not comparable to the Pope (who isn't really a head of state anyway).

It's a slightly insane amount of money, agreed - I'd be interested to know how much the Dalai Lama's visit cost in 2008, for example. And yes there is the whole issue of the abuse scandals too, which can't really be ignored. But the Pope is still the spiritual leader of one billion people in the world, and even if the Catholic church has its flaws and its problems, it's not all bad and it does a lot of good work as well.

And unfortunately £12m is just a drop in the ocean of some reckless government spending. The Olympics? Nuclear defence? And the bloody wine the Foreign Office buys to the tune of £17,500. And duck houses and moats and what not. Ho hum - yet we have to be prepared to tighten our belts under the new budget...

Why so much?

Easy Jet from Rome, Gatwick Express, Travellodge, 2-4-1 Pizza Express.

Sorted.

Catholic bashing again. So lazy, and so predictable!

From what I recall, the Catholics were a dab hand at bashing - only then, it was defenceless children.