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Pope Benedict XVI to visit the UK, criticise their laws and cost them £20 million

Posted by: CanuckJacq on February 2, 2010.

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While Americans prepare to see their president speak at a Family-cult-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast, preparations are now underway for the Pope to make an official state visit to the UK, where the official religion is the Church of England.

It is likely that the Pope’s visit will be for four days in September 2010 and may begin in Scotland, as the Queen (official host in a state visit) will be residing at Balmoral at the time. It is also expected to cost the state five million pounds for each day of the pontiff’s visit.

The Pope, who has defended the church’s financial and PR interests throughout the child sex abuse scandals and also bigged up the Vatican for its actions during the Holocaust at synagogue in Rome, has slammed the UK’s new Equality Bill to a group of 35 English and Welsh Bishops. He said:

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.
In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.

Apparently, the right to hire only practicing Roman Catholics to clean churches is central to religious freedom. Bear in mind the only thing they are worried about is homosexuals and feminists. The Roman Catholic church has rarely spoken out against adulterers or corrupt business people, or even murderers for that matter. While they continue to employ those who defended child molesters (like the Pope for instance), they want protection from the government to not hire homosexuals or feminists.

I’ve written about the UK Equality Bill before. The only thing it prevents churches from doing is from discriminating when hiring staff for non-teaching or worship leading positions. It will not require them to hire priests who are not catholic. It will not even require them to hire a gay choir director (although, many churches do anyway). It would require they not pick the straight janitor over the gay one, if the gay candidate is more qualified than the straight. It will require they consider the application of a feminist woman who believes in choice, when hiring accountants. This bill will not affect the teaching of the church one tiny little bit.

Also, does anyone even remember when Catholics were largely discriminated against? Apparently not Catholics.

Several groups are expected to protest the state visit in September including the British National Secular Society.

The visit is also expected to honour Cardinal John Henry Newman, who converted from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism at the age of 44. Opus Dei member, Jack Valero, has hinted that a ceremony at Coventry Airport may be in the works. Mr Valero is the official spokesman for the Beatification of Cardinal Newman who could possibly become the first non-martyred saint from England since the Reformation.