INTERNATIONAL AID BUDGET SPENT ON VATICAN STATE VISIT

FMQ is over at Subrosa's place this week


It seems that one of the countries that is in need of foreign aid is none other than the fabulously wealthy Vatican City.

I know this because it has come to the notice of the Committee for International Development, chaired by Malcolm Bruce, who has asked how diverting money from the international aid budget to pay for the state visit of His Holiness the Pope would meet the requirements of global aid rules.

Detailed examination of the accounts of the Department for International Development (DfID) show that £1.85 million of their fund money, was transferred from foreign aid to help pay for the expensive visit in June 2010.

Mr Bruce quite rightly noted that many people would be as surprised as the committee to discover that UK aid money was used to fund the Pope's visit. He also asked that ministers should explain exactly what this was spent on and how it tallies with Britain’s commitments on overseas aid.

Apparently DfID reckon that they were one of a number of government departments which part-funded the Pope's visit to the UK. The contribution, according to a spokesman, recognized the Catholic Church’s role as a major provider of health and education services in developing countries.

Good heavens. I’ve heard some crummy excuses in my time, but this one is worthy of a satire show all on its own. The Catholic Church does a great deal of work in under-developed countries, including continuing to deny the inhabitants the luxury of contraception to control the every larger population. Good work.

The spokesman said that the money did not constitute official development assistance and was therefore additional to the coalition government's historic commitment to meet the 0.7% UN aid target from 2013 (which is required to be met in order for the prime minister to retain his seat at the G8 table), although, I suspect that this has been hastily added now that the cat is out of the bag.

How embarrassing for the government to be found to be pilfering from an aid budget, to subsidize celebrations for the great and the good. But how typical.

But be aware that when you pay your higher taxes and get reduced services for them, that while this country blows hard about how much money it contributes to international aid, to helping the poorest people in the world, people hit by typhoons, earthquakes, disease and pestilence, that the government is just as likely to transfer the money to wining and dining heads of state, and laugh at you behind your back.

Pics: (1) The Pope has a new hat Sophia! (2) Examples of aid that the Vatican has spread around the third world, thus rendering it deserving of our aid money to fund their state visit. (3) How the ordinary people of the Vatican City live. (4) The poor wee Pope's summer residence at Gandolfo, which, along with Vatican City remains a part of the Papal States.

Cardinal Sean Brady is still Primate of All Ireland and the Church is disgraced

Incredibly, Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, has admitted that he witnessed two children who had been victims of paedophile Father Brendan Smyth being ordered to sign agreements, under oath, that they would not disclose his sexual abuse of them with anybody other than an approved priest. And he is STILL Primate of All Ireland!!

It is beyond belief. But it gets more incredible

The Cardinal defended his role saying that he had been part of a process that resulted in Smyth having his licence removed. He said that three weeks after he submitted a report to the Bishop of Kilmore, Smyth was suspended from practising as a priest in the diocese and across Ireland. But this was in 1975, and the paedophile remained free to abuse children until 1993.

He did not report the allegations about the priest to the police because, he said, he was not the designated person to do so. Amazing isn't it?

So for nearly 20 years more, although he was no longer a priest, Smyth went on with his filth. So awful were this man’s crimes that in 1994 the matter brought down the Irish government. Smyth was imprisoned and shortly after died, but only after 40 years of abuse. An unbelievable record of horror.

Cardinal Brady was in the Vatican last month with all Ireland’s bishops for a meeting with the Pope to discuss the findings of government-appointed inquiries into the Irish Church’s record of child sex abuse. One of these reports found that the government along with the Church and legal authorities had covered up a sad and sickening history of 40 years of sexual abuse and beatings by priests and nuns of thousands of children in state care.

The other report showed the extent to which senior clergy had lied and deceived to protect the Church’s reputation. Just what the Church is all about really. Oh no, wait, it’s all about truth and honesty.... silly me. Still, it’s an easy mistake to make.

Wherever you go, the Roman Catholic Church, like many other churches, has a wide remit to break or override the law of the country in which it operates. It can, for example demand that its priests are all male, which is against the sex discrimination legislation of most countries; it can also insist that any people working for it, in any role at all be followers of the faith (even if they are eg, a cleaner, administrator, teacher of non religious subject at one of their schools, and have no Clerical function).

It seems that in Ireland the Church being above the law was taken to a higher level. The Cardinal was, at the time of his collusion, a recorder with a tribunal which meant that he took the notes of evidence on behalf of the bishop at the tribunal sessions. He also questioned witnesses and recorded their answers. The hearings were held behind closed doors at a Dominican friary and at the Norbertine Order’s Holy Trinity Abbey. They were presided over by three canon lawyers.

So they were religious courts which dealt with matters which were quite clearly civil law offences (a little like the House of Lords in England, but in this case much much more serious matters).

This man should immediately be fired by the Pope. How anyone in Ireland can have even the least confidence in sending their children to anywhere that this man has charge of is beyond my comprehension. Quite literally God only knows what he continues to hide.



Pictured: Cardinal Brady and The Vatican City State, to which he was summoned by His Holiness Pope Benedictus

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