THE FCO ISN'T FIT FOR PURPOSE BUT IT HAS A NICE NEW LOGO

What in the name of...well... I suppose, in the name of God, do the staff in our Foreign and Commonwealth Office get to do with themselves all day?

Well for one thing changing the font on the FCO logo. Yes, for a mere £80 000 the FCO got consultants redesign the logo from the top to the bottom example.

We all have to make sacrifices because of the greed and stupidity of the financial sector and the government, all except the FCO, which needs a new logo. Desperately.

It’s the FCO’s new “brand” you see. I’m sure you’ll have guessed it, but if not, the new “brand” represents: Empowering; Insightful; Principled; Persuasive; Strategic; Intelligent. (You knew it all along.)

Right.

So, if they are intelligent, why on earth were they wasting their time... no, our time, with a brain storming (or I was once told by a council official “thought showering... as brain storming might be offensive to people who suffer from epilepsy”. Can you imagine the look I gave her?) on the subject of suitable activities for Pope Benedict’s state visit to the UK.

Some half wit wrote a report suggesting all manner of idiotic things like launching an eponymous condom brand, opening an abortion clinic, singing a charity song with the Queen and doing forward rolls with school children.

In fairness there was one very interesting proposal, that he spend the night in a council flat...why not? If he has come to see how his people live in this country, the palaces of the Cardinal Archbishops in Glasgow or London are not likely to give him any indications at all. And it included the suggestion that he should sack some “dodgy bishops”, with which I have a deal of sympathy.

But these two proposals aside, surely the rest of the document is some sort of joke. And in these straitened times, if we have staff with time to produce joke documents, then it is high time we lost them.

For the rest of us there is little time to joke, and frequently little to laugh about.

The British government has of course been fulsome in its apologies to the Vatican State.

The Bishop of Nottingham called the report appalling and Cardinal Renato Martino, former head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said: “The British government has invited the Pope as its guest and he should be treated with respect. To make a mockery of his beliefs and the beliefs of millions of Catholics, not just in Britain but across the world, is very offensive indeed.”

Actually I agree with him. Right now I have no time at all for the Pope. It appears that he has covered up numerous cases of child abuse and has taken a light hand with others who have done the same thing. Saying he is sorry and weeping and praying may be considered to be justice enough in the Vatican State, but it sure as hell (literally) isn’t in Scotland. In my opinion the invitation to visit should be withdrawn until such time as we have a Pope unscarred by any association with this filthy crime.

However, I am also concerned that we are employing, presumably at considerable expense, Oxbridge educated (educated?) staff to write this drivel. And as punishment the writer has been transferred to other duties! Maybe he’ll be redesigning the logo, or weeping with the Pope.

Incidentally, this is the first ever state visit of a Pope to Scotland and England. Pope John-Paul II’s visit in 1982 was financed by the Vatican; this one is costing us millions.


Pics: Old Logo; New logo; Pope Benedict in a red hat

POSSIBLE SHADOW OVER POPE'S STATE VISIT TO SCOTLAND

The matter of abuse by priests of the Catholic Church is one which this blog has covered before. It is no secret how much I despise the way that people entrusted with care of kids, totally trusted by their parents, abused that trust.

Now the whole subject has moved up a notch if The Times is to be believed. It seems that the Pope himself has been involved in the cover up of at least one scandal.

It reports revelations that in the 1990s he, as Cardinal Ratzinger failed to defrock an American priest who molested hundreds of deaf boys, despite receiving letters from a number of American bishops pleading with him to act.

Internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to the Cardinal warning him that failure to act could embarrass the church, have been found.

The particular case involves the priest, Lawrence Murphy, who allegedly molested up to 200 pupils in their dormitories, on excursions and elsewhere.

Fr Murphy wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger begging for leniency. He said that he had already repented and was in poor health and wanted to live out the rest of his life in what he called the “dignity” of the priesthood. “Dignity”, after molesting 200 kids is a bit steep, but these people’s minds seem to work in funny ways.

The worrying thing for Scotland is that it appears that Viceroy Spud, on instructions for Gordon Brown, presumably with some hopes of gaining political advantage from the situation, went to Vatican City to invite His Holiness to make a state visit to Scotland. Further to that, His Holiness was pleased to accept the Queen’s invitation, and he will arrive at Edinburgh Airport on September 16, to be greeted by the Duke of Rothsay, and taken to Holyrood House to meet the Queen and the First Minister, and then be taken to Glasgow for an open-air Mass.

If it is shown that the Pope did in fact allow such a man to continue as a priest, to avoid the disgrace, and the civil law in Wisconsin, which would undoubtedly have meant prison, what kind of a reception will the people of Scotland show this man?

We are by and large a decent people. Adherents of his Church were always going to line the streets and wave the flags of Scotland and the Vatican State. But peoples of other faiths too would surely have welcomed him as a head of state and head of a Church. Mindful of the respect that it is normal to pay such a person, I wonder what ordinary Scots would feel about a man who hid the truth about an abuser of 200 kids? I know how I feel.

Is this yet another example of something Brown touches turning to dust.


Pictured: The Pope alone and with the Viceroy in St Peter's, Vatican.


.....

EQUALITY OFFENDS THE PONTIFF

The Pope has broken with tradition and made a criticism of the legislation currently going through the UK parliament. Strangely his remarks came as he confirmed that he would make his first apostolic and state visit to Britain later this year. He must be very sure that the government wants him to make this visit.

The Pope told a gathering of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales in Rome: "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."

If you look more deeply into what His Holiness is saying, it appears that he is concerned that the Bill may interfere with the rights of the Roman Catholic Church to discriminate in favour of marriage for its adherents and against marriage for its priest, monks and nuns; he does not agree with the law to demand equal rights for women, nor that of a law to demand equal rights for homosexuals and transgender people. Further, it is thought Sexual Orientation Regulations could force Catholic adoption agencies to consider gay couples as potential adoptive parents, and he doesn’t agree with that either.

I am not a religious person, but as I have said before, I respect the right of people to choose a life as close as they can to their idea of perfection, as long as it does not interfere with the next man’s right to do the same thing.

I think that that probably means that we must accept certain ground rules, as we have done for centuries. Many of these rules will be in accordance with at least some holy teachings: thou shalt not commit murder, is a good example, as is charity to the less well off, and acceptance of equality of people of different races. Others have come upon us since the scriptures were written. So although rules that say women and men must be treated equally in employment law, and that we must not discriminate against someone because they are disabled or gay are not in the scriptures, many would say that they are in the spirit of the scriptures.

Pope Benedict is encouraging his English and Welsh bishops to work against the parliament of the UK to undermine their proposals for law, and that brings several thoughts to my mind:

1. Were this another head of state with a state visit planned, would the government be considering whether he was still welcome here? If it were Sarkozy, for example, who had made it clear that he wanted to overturn UK law, would the government remain quiet?

2. Would the Pope be happy to see his teachings turned back upon himself and his adherents? Would he, for example, be happy if a woman refused to serve a Roman Catholic in her shop, or a gay hotelier refused to have a catholic in his or her establishement?

3. If His Holiness wishes to interfere with the laws of the UK, would it not be a good idea to put his efforts and time and that of his bishops into the appalling poverty and deprivation on one hand, and massive bonuses and greed on the other, that exists in the country which he intends to visit. Inequality of another sort.


Religion most certainly has a place in many people's lives, and therefore in legisation. Where to draw the line in its influence is a very difficult and divisive question.

One thing is for sure; the churches seem to have an unhealthy, and rather unsavoury interest in matters of gender or sex.