³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

It is quite sickening to think that almost £2 million pound was raided from the DFID budget to provide the Pope and his entourage with lavish banquets and luxury accommodation while children in Africa are literally starving to death. The Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world and the possessor of art treasures worth millions: if the Pope was truly interested in helping to solve global poverty he would see that the millions were repaid.

It is ludicrous. The National Secular Society has been trying to crowbar figures on the cost of the Pope's visit for some time now. Unsurpringly, given that his visit was met with apathy at best and a fair degree of hostility - contrary to the portrayal by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, which propagandised it - the government has been very reluctant to release those figures.

The NSS has however found the following so far:

Central Government: £10.2 million
West Midlands Police: £280,000
Birmingham City Council: £82,000
Warwickshire Police (for planning for a mass at Coventry airport that was subsequently abandoned): £80,000
Edinburgh city council: parades and street decorations: £300,000
Lothian and Borders Police £543,000
The Metropolitan Police had an initial budget of £1.8 million, but that is bound to have increased. We are trying to find out (using FoI) what was actually spent. We also need to know how much Strathclyde police spent in the Glasgow visit. And that's before the security services present their bill (if that is ever publicly revealed).

The Catholic Church promised a £7 million contribution, but at the last count it has raised only something like £3 million. Terry Sanderson said: "We are determined that the Catholic Church will not walk away from this debt and leave even more millions for the British taxpayer to fork out. We will continue to insist that the Government demand this money as promised."

As Mouse understandings the situation, not a single penny has been taken from the International Aid budget. In fact, it comes from DFID's departmental budget, which is not the same thing.

When it comes to aid, the Coalition has committed to increasing overseas aid to 0.7% of gross national income which will see overseas aid rise from £8.6bn in 2010 to £12.4bn in 2014, after having ring-fenced overseas aid from spending cuts (in the face of some criticism). Accusing them of raiding the aid budget, when they have actually significantly raised it is pretty opportunistic politics.

Mouse would also point out that DFID's departmental budget for 2010-11, excluding overseas aid, is £7.8bn, so picking up the tab for £1.85m is pretty small fry. To give some context, back in July 2010 £8m was cut from the department's IT costs, and Mouse did not hear anyone demanding to know why 'aid money' had been cut.

Not surprisingly opponents of both the Coalition government and the Pope have been keen to give this story a good airing and have been extremely lax in using terminology such as "aid money", when it is not actually aid money.

BTW, the The NSS figures quoted above are distinctly dodgy, as they make no distinction between 'notional spend' and actual cash costs. For example, if 30 policemen attend a rally, you could notionally cost that up as 30 x a policeman's salary. However, if they did that as part of their normal job, it actually cost nothing in cash terms, as we were going to pay their salary whatever they were doing.

We must remember that before the visit, the NSS claimed it was costing £100m - their estimates are now rather lower, despite shoe-horning notional spend into their numbers to try to make it seem like it cost more than it really did.

Clearly there is a debate to be had about the way Gordon Brown organised this visit and committed the taxpayer to funding part of it, but let's have that debate without trying to distort the facts.

Sorry - have a dodgy stat in there - the DFID budget of £7.8bn includes overseas aid. It is not easy to work out from their annual accounts exactly what their admin costs are, but Mouse reckons from reading them it is roughly £300m.

If anyone can figure it out themselves, the accounts from last year are here:

It's pretty awful nearly £2,000,000 was taken out of the DFID budget to fritter away on the Pope. His visit should have been paid out of the Vatican budget and by UK Catholic parishioners.
Personally, I would've preferred that sort of money going to the Salvation Army to help the poor & destitute.
Maybe the Pope/Vatican should be asked to donate the money back to the UK , through some organisation that helps the poor

The NSS figures, Mouse, are official as far as I can gather. They are actual cash figures obtained using Freedom of Information requests from sources such as Policing Boards. They are not notional. The true cost of the visit is difficult to calculate chiefly because the government is intent on keeping it secret, one suspects because it knows poeple would be upset about the cost to the public purse. Your response on the DfID issue is mealy-mouthed. The money didn't come from the department's aid budget, because that is ring-fenced. It did, however, come from money for overseas operations. It was misdirected. The Church and parishioners should have paid for this visit. That is the issue here. I don't happen to think "£1.85m is pretty small fry".

"Waiter, will you take these grapes back - they're sour"

How much did you contribute Mccamley to Liberace's, sorry I mean Ratzinger's visit?

As much VAT as there is on a packet of cheap paracetemol from Tesco's (16p for 16 for their own brand) which I find I need after reading this blog.

The Pope didn't make a state visit to my country. But I did enjoy watching it on television. Sky TV was best - far less of whinging that spoilt some of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s early coverage.

Mcc,

"Waiter, will you take these grapes back - they're sour"

That's hardly constructive when your leader's extravagances have caused hardship. It would appear that you care as little as he does about people. A fine example you set.

If the British government was too cheap to pay for state visit they shouldn't have invited him.

That said, money cut from overseas development is always good - since the experience of last forty years is that all it has done is encourage corruption, bad governance and poor economic growth.

You will find little objection to that conditional, Mccamleyc, and probably have a good case for the latter point. I just accept the implication - we should neither have invited him nor paid for his visit.

2 million in development aid being used for the popes visit is bad enough. But unfortunately it's small potatoes compared to what I read about taxpayers paying for the Catholic church in Ireland. A Yahoo news piece about the uncovered Vatican letter mandating a cover-up also contained an isolated bit of info on who was paying for the sex abuse claims.



"Irish taxpayers, rather than the church, have paid most of the euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) to more than 14,000 abuse claimants dating back to the 1940s."

The €1.5 billion amount makes the 2 million pale into insignificance. How convenient for the church that they can get away with just about anything and let others pay the penalty for what they did.

Peter Klaver

it is shocking that hard-pressed Irish taxpayers are having to pay these compensation claims and not the fabulously wealthy Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church should be made to pay for its involvement in shielding paedophile priests from the law. Known perverts were simply moved to other parishes from where they could continue to rape and abuse kids.

Peter Klaver, Let's hope RTE/³ÉÈËÂÛ̳/UTV pick that story up and give it a good airing

AboutFace (@ 2) -

"...contrary to the portrayal by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, which propagandised it..."

In what way? If by 'propagandised' you mean that the coverage was not to some people's personal liking, then I suspect that most of what the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ does should be called 'propagandising'. I simply can't see that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has remotely any kind of bias towards religion!!

Was the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ engaged in proselytising on behalf of the Catholic Church? Not as far as I could see.

Was the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ offering inducements to people to become Catholics? Errm, no.

Was the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ ignoring any criticism of the Pope and the Catholic Church? No.

Was the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ refusing to report on the protests against the Pope's visit? No.

So therefore, in what way was the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ propagandising the Pope's visit??

PeterK - think you'll find that wasn't for sexual abuse - it was for general abuse in state borstals run by religious orders. The State agreed to pay on the basis that the religious orders would not contest the claims and there would be an extremely reduced burden of proof. The religious orders could simply have said no, let them sue and very few of the 14,000 would have been successful in civil court hearings.

On the question of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ bias and religion it must be remembered that Mark Thompson, the Director General, intervened personally to secure the services of the Pope for Thought For The Day. Thompson engaged in a sort of shuttle diplomacy, flying off to the Vatican on a number of occasions.

The Pope began his though by telling us that God always keeps his promises although he may sometimes surprise us. Well, he certainly surprised a couple of hundred thousand Haitians who died in an earthquake!

To my friend Logica Sine Vanitate (why the pretentious Latin?). As Newlach mentions above, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Director General Mark Thompson did indeed take a number of trips to the Vatican. Not Sky nor ITV devoted so much undue attention to that visit. The Pope's visit was treated by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ as though it was a national event. It was not a national event. That is plain. This is the chief way in which the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ propagandised the pope's visit. The event, insofar as it can even be referred to as such, was met overwhelmingly with indifference if not hostility but by a minute fraction of the people who turned out to see him, and even they were far smaller in their number than the church or the UK government expected. But it was presented by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s blanket coverage to have been something on the scale of a Royal wedding. Or a Royal death. The ratio of coverage to interest was a joke.

Further, since it was giving blanket coverage, and maintains fast to its own myth of objective coverage about pretty much anything, of course mention was given to what has also been spun as the "difficulties" the church has been experiencing lately. These "difficulties" are nothing of the sort, but a shameful exhibition of the default position Christians assume when faced squarely with justified criticism: victimhood. These "difficult times" are far less than the deserts the church should be dealing with, which it brought on itself in its covering up of decades upon decades of child abuse. Repeating this should not be allowed to rob it of its gravity. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ did not allow awkward commentators any airtime whatsoever during the pope's visit.

I'm sorry, but really, what kind of rubble have you in your eyes that you can't see this as plain?

I assume by "logic without vanity" (or thereabouts) you mean logic on insofar as it tells you what you want to hear. And where it doesn't, you do the very typically catholic thing of pretending it's not there? A discreet sweeping of logic and what is plain as day under the dirty old carpet?

Enough of that I say. Religious people become an affront to themselves when met with righteous anger they're not participating in.

newlach (@ 18) -

"Well, he certainly surprised a couple of hundred thousand Haitians who died in an earthquake!"

How's atheism progressing in Haiti? Please give me an update. Obviously it must be doing well, now that the Haitians have (so we understand from the opinions of 'those who know everything') clear and unequivocal evidence that God does not exist!

I suppose is just a fabrication then?

AboutFace -

"...where it doesn't, you do the very typically catholic thing of pretending it's not there?"

I am not a Catholic.

"why the pretentious Latin?"

So what?

Making a big deal about someone's moniker is pretty bad form in any internet community.

Hey... what do you make of 'romejellybean' then? Or a new one that's appeared: "GubbioWolf"?

Of course my moniker is totally and utterly pretentious. I'm the first to admit it. It's just a bit of fun - even if it is provocative (it obviously worked then!). Who cares? Not me, that's for sure.

"I'm sorry, but really, what kind of rubble have you in your eyes that you can't see this as plain?"

I followed quite a lot of the coverage of the Pope's visit and I didn't think that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s role was to pursue the line of the protesters. There is more to the Catholic Church than simply the things you may not agree with, and it is only fair that that should be covered. There are acres of reports about the abuse scandals and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has reported extensively on those.

So if failing to agree with your viewpoint means I have 'rubble in my eyes', then the rubble will just have to remain there, because I don't intend to remove it for your sake!

MCC
"The religious orders could simply have said no and, "Very few of the 14000 (abuse cases) would have been successful in civil law courts."


Wasnt that so nice of the religious orders?

Is there no end to your talents? You are now an expert in Law too. 300 people walking into a court stating that they were abused by those people in the dock is pretty convincing in a civil court. And the victims in catholic run institutions were in hundreds at a time. The vast majority of those cases would have been successful - the exact opposite to your groundless claim.

Religious orders did what the rest of the church did, NOTHING, until they were forced to. Hows the religious order you belong to doing these days?

As it happens I have some experience in law, indeed for a time I exercised a judicial function on behalf of the State.

300 people who can't agree on the names of who abused them, or when, or the fact that the people accused might be dead, or that the discipline used was in many cases similar to discipline used at the time within the home and within ordinary schools - yes I think a lot of those people would have had difficulty make a case in a court. And having made that case they would then have had to argue over the relative responsibility of the individuals concerned, the religious order and the State, with different insurance companies instructing different sets of legal teams. It would not have been easy.

I don't think the orders in questions are worthy of any sort of praise for their behaviour before or since - but the State created the award set up, with almost no burden of proof, and that's why the costs have spiralled. The only proof required seems to have been proof (I understand in some cases an assertion) that you were in a particular institution at a particular time.

My own order is doing just fine and is, as far as I am aware, not the subject of any proceedings.

Whatever of my bluster. "I followed quite a lot of the coverage of the Pope's visit". Yes, only a complete obsessive could have managed to follow it all - because there was saturation coverage on the World Servive, Radio 4, Radio 2, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳1 and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳4. The website was saturated with it too.

You did pretty well to skirt the issue you raised in the first place there, which you had with my pointing out that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ propagandised a visit which was met overwhelmingly with indifference and hostility and was presented as a national event.

I didn't even bring up the fudge that was made of whether it was a "state visit" or a "pastoral" one. It was a "state visit" when the pope was looking for guarantees under the rules of diplomatic immunity that he wouldn't be arrested as had been threatened - the same rules dictators like Pinochet exploited - but in the day-to-day of it it was a pastoral visit with open-air masses and hullabaloo for the catholic few paid for by the rest of us. And we're all bloody skint. Hw very convenient for the church. A pastoral visit with diplomatic trappings. Or vice versa.

ANd that brings me very neatly to the point I made at the start: The state should not have been expected to pay for this religious jamboree. Constabularies were told to find the budget for the pope's security from their own already drained coffers. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ ("public service broadcaster") became the official catholic proselyte broadcaster. The irony only deepened to the level which can only be expected to emerge where religion is involved when news broke that the international development fund had been plundered to the tune of £1.85 million to part finance the visit and this in all likelihood happened because the government was trying to hoodwink the money from here and there so as to avoid having to quote a final bill to anyone until the story had blown over.

The poster, ChurchMouse above, said that £1.85 million is "small fry". It could pay 73 Band 6 (entry level specialist - at least eight years' experience) nurses for a year. In the UK. The mealy mouthed argument that the money snaffled from DfID wasn't from the aid fund is pretty outrageous. It was taken from the department which administers and distributes the aid money.

In August it transpired a pledge to support free healthcare in the world's poorest countries was one of more than 90 aid commitments to be scrapped by the government. The committment of 0.7% of national income to international development was maintained amid the slash and burn the DfID has suffered in this economic mess by reclassifying energy projects as "international development". It's status in the Cabinet Office makes a mockery of it. It is decimated. It was even proposed by a Lord in July that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World Service be classes as "international aid" and so be able to get a chunk of DfID money.

So the DfID under the coallition government has become something of a euphamism for I-don't-know-what.

And the Holy See walks quite unabashedly away from that bill. Even George W Bush picked up most of the tab for his "real" state visit.

And he had the gall to attack "aggressive secularism". What's that? People who refuse to have wool pulled over their eyes by him? He likened the rise of atheism to that of the Nazis. Whatever the vague details about his involvement with Hitler Youth, in this very day he is dealing with Lukashenko of Belarus, "Europe's Mogabe" and "Europe's last dictator" depending on who you ask, negotiating a concordat, a church-state agreement which gives the trashing of human rights religious sanction. Lukashenko is brutal. 15% of his country is catholic, the majority by far are orthodox.

But heyyy. Fuh-gedda-baahhhhhd-it. The Pope? He's a "pretty straight kinda guy". No wonder he appeals to Tony Blair.