Who should pay for the Pope's visit?

[CosmicSpork]

By the time Mass has ended this Sunday morning, the Catholic Church in the UK hopes the trickle of pounds and pence onto collection plates will have raised ,£1m towards this year's papal visit.

,£1m is a lot of small change to pull together in a single morning, but this is a fraction of the total needed to fund the Pope's state visit to England and Scotland in September.

The total bill for the invited visit - without the cost of police and security - is estimated by the Foreign Office to be about ,£15m. Of this, ,£7m will come from the Catholic Church, the rest will be shouldered by taxpayers.

It is this final issue of whether, in a secular democracy, the public purse should pay for the visit of a religious leader, that has led to criticism.

In March the National Secular Society (NSS) pressure group delivered a 28,000-name petition to Downing Street objecting to any state funding of what they say is a religious activity.

Read more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8692756.stm

Who should pay? Uuuuh, how about the pope or the church?!

I don't get half my travel expenses paid for by the government.

 

[MRaverz]

I don't want the Pope here, I don't see why I should support the visit through taxes.

Simple as that, only something like 10% of the country are Catholic anyway. Don't rely on that percentage, lol.

 

[Shaedys]

Can someone explain to me why this would cost 15 million?

 

[Squawk]

Let him sell some of his jewelry and pay for it himself. Cheap skate.

 

[CosmicSpork]

Yeah apparently only 1 in 10 people in the UK are Catholic. Imagine what could be done with that ,£8 million, plus the money it will cost for the security and police...

This shit drives me up the wall. The economy is still in the shit, the country is in massive debt, but here we are shelling for some old man in a pointy hat to give us the "privilege" of him visiting us..
:x :x :x :facepalm: :evil:

 

[nasher168]

If gullible fools wish to pay for the visit via the collection plate, then that's their decision. Tax money, on the other hand, would be a stupid thing to do.
Disappointed though I will be, I think it is nevertheless likely that tax money will indeed be used.

 

[Case]

I'd build a school with that money instead. :/

 

[Nashy19]

It depends what exactly is happened.

If we are putting something on for the pope then we should pay.
If the pope is visiting us then the pope/church should pay.
If the pope wants private security either the pope should or he can rely of Gods protection.
If we want to extra policing because of crowds we should pay, because I think people should have that sort of freedom no matter how famous they are, and the crowds would be caused by interested British people, anyway.

Do we spend much money on the Vatican City?

Yeah apparently only 1 in 10 people in the UK are Catholic. Imagine what could be done with that ,£8 million, plus the money it will cost for the security and police...

This shit drives me up the wall. The economy is still in the shit, the country is in massive debt, but here we are shelling for some old man in a pointy hat to give us the "privilege" of him visiting us..
:x :x :x :facepalm: :evil:

Lol put him in a stadium and charge them a fee.

 

[Beldin]

By the time Mass has ended this Sunday morning, the Catholic Church in the UK hopes the trickle of pounds and pence onto collection plates will have raised ,£1m towards this year's papal visit.

,£1m is a lot of small change to pull together in a single morning, but this is a fraction of the total needed to fund the Pope's state visit to England and Scotland in September.

The total bill for the invited visit - without the cost of police and security - is estimated by the Foreign Office to be about ,£15m. Of this, ,£7m will come from the Catholic Church, the rest will be shouldered by taxpayers.

It is this final issue of whether, in a secular democracy, the public purse should pay for the visit of a religious leader, that has led to criticism.

In March the National Secular Society (NSS) pressure group delivered a 28,000-name petition to Downing Street objecting to any state funding of what they say is a religious activity.

Read more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8692756.stm

Who should pay? Uuuuh, how about the pope or the church?!

I don't get half my travel expenses paid for by the government.

As an italian, I have to ask you

Why I have to pay for Pope's (and his bishops and priests) water, electricity, tax exemption for businesses (and drugs and whores also, obviously....)?

Because my government sucks

you're lucky, believe me