Ok, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that this shouldn't be happening ....

[non sociopath skin]

http://news.aol.co.uk/costs-to-rise-for-popes-uk/article/20100705100309703724675?icid=main|uk-ws-bb|dl1|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.co.uk%2Fcosts-to-rise-for-popes-uk%2Farticle%2F20100705100309703724675

... in the present climate.

Any thoughts, folks?

The Skin

[dipsydoodle]

1. I saw that on the news

and think its disgusting. The Vatican can easily afford to pay for his holidays abroad.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Agreed

Why should we need to pay for it anyway? If he wants to spread the word abroad, surely it comes under his general job description and the Vatican should pay.

[Nihil]

3. Dear Dave & Nick, a suggestion to save money for the country: ...

... stop subsidising the holidays of rich people like Benny XVI.

Follow that up by sacking the muppets who propose such visits as
somehow being good for the country.

Not only do you directly save the growing expense bills but it also
frees up the police & other emergency cover to do their job - taking
care of the people of THIS country rather than acting as celebrity
bodyguards.


(PS: Any chance of offloading the Olympics to some other sucker willing host?)

[Hopeless Romantic]

4. Yes well. if it keeps the kids safe while he's here then I'm all for it

:evilgrin:

[tjwmason]

5. The whole event has been messed up by the English Bishops

There are two elements - the state visit and the apostolic visit.

As a world leader with significant influence it would be as natural to invited Benedict XVI here on a state visit as it would be to invite the Russian President or Japanese Emperor - the usual practice is that the costs are borne by the host government.

Benedict XVI is not just a world leader, however, and whilst he is here he is also acting as pastor of his flock (a couple of large-scale Masses and the beatification of Cardinal Newman) - naturally the costs of this should not fall on the government.

Unless this is a new development, the costs for the former element have held steady whereas those for the latter have risen shockingly and dramatically (because of very bad management); this is proving to be a large strain for the Conference of Catholic Bishops of England and Wales who seem to be intent on keeping the faithful away from the Pope whilst simultaneously grabbing money from them. My suspicion is that to prevent embarassment the government is quietly re-drawing some boundaries between 'state' and 'apostolic' elements.

If the issue is regarding security - what is the usual practice for funding security for large-scale non-governmental events? Political rallies, music festivals, sports matches and the like - they would seem to fall into the same sort of category.