UK official says pope's September visit will be costly, but important

With Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom just seven weeks away, the British government official working on organizing the trip said the pope's visit will cost taxpayers more than originally foreseen, but it would be an important opportunity to highlight and promote cooperation on issues the British care about.

Vatican Radio interviewed Sir Chris Patten, the government's papal trip coordinator and the former governor of Hong Kong, July 26.

The pope is scheduled to visit Scotland and England Sept. 16-19, meeting Queen Elizabeth, Anglican and other religious leaders, celebrating public Masses and beatifying Cardinal John Henry Newman.

A detailed program for the visit still had not been published when Patten was interviewed, which led to speculation that the planning had hit a snag.

Patten said he had been appointed to coordinate the government's part in the planning because after a new British prime minister was elected, "we were in danger of falling behind" in organizing the visit.

"I think at the outset, and this is no criticism, people had perhaps underestimated the complexity involved in fitting together the state visit aspect and the pastoral aspects as if they were a seamless whole," he told Vatican Radio.

"It's incomparably more difficult arranging the state visit of the Holy Father than arranging the state visit, I suspect, of even President (Barack) Obama. President Obama doesn't go out and meet 80,000-100,000 people at an open-air venue," he said.

Patten said he expected the four-day papal visit to cost British taxpayers more than $15 million, but he said April's one-day summit of the leaders of the world's largest national economies cost British taxpayers more than $30 million.

He said the pope's visit is important for Catholics and other religious believers, but "I also think it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate that the government of a largely non-Catholic country still has a formidably large agenda to work with the Catholic Church on issues of consensus," particularly regarding human rights and international development aid.

Patten, a Catholic, said the pope's visit also could contribute to the government's efforts to strengthen the relationships among British faith groups.

Several individuals and groups have announced plans to stage protests while the pope is in England, and Patten said that peaceful protests would be allowed since "we live in a free society."

However, he said, the government wants "to ensure not only the security of the Holy Father, but also that the pastoral events are not disrupted, because that would give serious offense."

Patten said intolerance or even outright hostility toward religion is often directed more at the Catholic Church than other faith communities "because of the Catholic Church's prominence and longevity and self-confidence in asserting some basic truths."

"But I don't worry too much about that," he said. "I think we have to stand our ground, recognizing when we do so that we've often been intolerant to others ourselves in the past. We should be arguing that it's ironic that some secularists -- not all -- are being as intolerant of church groups as church groups were of them in the past."

One of the challenges that members of every religion face in Britain, a challenge the pope will share, "is getting across the message that religion is not a problem, that faith is, for many people, the way they cope with the challenges of living in the 21st century," he said.

SIC: CNS