......AND ALL THIS MONEY FOR ONE WEE HAT

I read in the Sunday Post this week (yes, I know it’s Thursday, but I’m a slow reader) that the estimated cost of security during the Pope’s visit to Scotland this autumn will be around £70 million.

Now that’s a lot of money in any language (especially if the wee man’s only coming here to give Sophia Pangloss her red hat back).

As this is a State Visit and the Pope is here by invitation of Her Majesty’s government (ie wee Spud) as Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, we have to pick this bill up.

The security money, it seems, will come out of the Scottish government’s budget, despite the Scottish government having played no part in the invitation. And according to the article in the Post, the Scottish government says that it can’t afford it.

Now to be fair the Scottish government can easily afford £70 million pounds; it’s a lot, but in governmental terms it’s next to nothing, but at a time when pensioners are finding that their services have been cut, libraries are closing down, children’s services are being reduced etc, I think that Holyrood is quite right to say it can’t afford the money for a one day visit by a foreign head of state.

I’m not denying that this head of state may be important to a proportion of the Scottish population, and for those who feel that way his visit will be a huge event in their lives. The fact that I can’t see why, after all faith in God, is faith in God, not in a man in a long white garb, is of little relevance.

I’m also wondering who’s making the vast profit out of it. Who provides this security? As popular as the Pope will be with some people, he will be equally unpopular with others, I accept, particularly given his personal involvement in the scandals that have surrounded the Church, but £70 million... for one day?

The British Government invited the man on behalf of the British Queen. They should pay. And, as the Post suggests, it wouldn’t hurt if the obscenely wealthy Vatican City State were to put its hands in its pockets.

Alternatively Sophia could just nip over to Vatican on one of these cheap flights and get her hat back herself.

Pics: Sophia's hat (modeled by an elderly citizen of a small Mediterranean country), and an example of some of the Vatican's wealth that it might conside selling to pay for the Pope's security (in fact Michelangelo's Pietà which is in St Peter's Basillica, Vatican)

WHAT'S GOOD FOR PRIESTS ISN'T GOOD FOR FCO JUNIORS

The hypocrisy of the Vatican!

I feel I should apologise for blogging on the same subject twice in succession, but I had a quick glance at the papers this evening and I really began to wonder if we’d stepped back in time to All Fools’ Day.

It seems that the Vatican has taken the insulting proposals for the Pope’s visit very seriously and mutterings in Holy See are that the Pope may cancel his state visit to Scotland and England. Apparently the British Ambassador to the Vatican City State was summoned this afternoon to see the Secretary of State, the man in the Vatican who deals with Foreign Affairs and is the de facto Deputy Pope. The matter will now be discussed with the Pope himself.

It appears that this, on top of other matters such as Richard Dawkins’ threat to have the Pope arrested, persuaded officials at the Vatican, that acceptance of the invitation delivered by Jim Murphy on behalf of the Queen was a big mistake.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Senior Papal aides suggested the Foreign Office had not taken strong enough disciplinary action against those responsible for the document.

Now I’m not making excuses for the idiot employee who wrote this rubbish, but what was it that the FCO did to the guy? Oh yes. He was reprimanded and transferred to other duties.

Now then, what was it that these bishops did, sometimes with the good Cardinal Ratzinger’s knowledge when they discovered a priest had been abusing people in his care? Oh yes. They reprimanded him and transferred him to other duties.


See the connection there?

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that a stupid, childish and disrespectful prank is, in the eyes of the Vatican, on the same level of severity as the hideous crime of child abuse. Would that be about right?

Or is it, to be totally honest, that anticipating an embarrassingly hostile reception when he landed in Edinburgh, and realising that he had only been invited as part of a pre election publicity stunt by the Labour Party, the Pope was desperately looking for a good excuse not to make the visit? And we handed him one on a plate.

Whatever, it’s not looking good for Spud.

Pics: Foreign Office and The Vatican

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