{"id":4329,"date":"2010-04-25T08:57:39","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T08:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html"},"modified":"2010-04-25T08:57:39","modified_gmt":"2010-04-25T08:57:39","slug":"the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html","title":{"rendered":"The outrageous proposals for the pope&#8217;s visit to Britain &#8212; UPDATED"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I swear, sometimes I think the people generating the news these days all work at The Onion.<\/p>\n<p>But no.  Evidently, this is legit.<\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/newstopics\/religion\/7628752\/Ministers-apologise-for-insult-to-Pope.html\">Times of London:<\/a> <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to Britain by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even launch Papal-branded condoms.<\/p>\n<p>The astonishing proposals, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, were contained in secret papers drawn up earlier this month by civil servants following a &#8216;brainstorm&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The ideas, included in a memo headed &#8216;The ideal visit would see &#8230;&#8217;, ridiculed the Catholic Church&#8217;s teachings including its opposition to abortion, homosexual behaviour and contraception. Many appeared to be deliberately provocative rather than a serious attempt to plan an itinerary for the September visit.<\/p>\n<p>The proposals, which were then circulated among key officials in Downing Street and Whitehall, also include the Pope opening an abortion ward; spending the night in a council flat in Bradford; doing forward rolls with children to promote healthy living; and even performing a duet with the Queen.<\/p>\n<p>In reference to the hugely sensitive issue of child abuse engulfing the Catholic Church, the Government document suggests that the Pope should take a &#8220;harder line on child abuse &#8211; announce sacking of dodgy bishops&#8221; and &#8220;launch helpline for abused children&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The document was sent out by a junior Foreign Office civil servant with a covering note admitting that some of the plans were &#8220;far-fetched&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Recipients of the memo were furious at its content and an investigation was launched. One senior official was found responsible and has been transferred to other duties.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday the Foreign Office issued a public apology after being approached by The Sunday Telegraph, while Francis Campbell, the UK ambassador to the Vatican, met senior officials of the Holy See to express the Government&#8217;s regret.<\/p>\n<p>David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was &#8220;appalled&#8221; to hear of the proposals, according to a source close to him, and blamed &#8220;a colossal failure of judgement&#8221; by officials involved. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/newstopics\/religion\/7628752\/Ministers-apologise-for-insult-to-Pope.html\">the rest. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere on the Times website, you can also find <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/comment\/faith\/article7107656.ece\">an update<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/timescolumns.typepad.com\/gledhill\/2010\/04\/shocking-disgrace-of-pope-memo-god-save-our-world.html\">further reaction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><b>UPDATE:<\/b> The Daily Mail has even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1268577\/Foreign-Office-apology-Pope-condom-slur-mocking-email-storm.html\">more details on the storm this has caused,<\/a> and the reaction from all sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I swear, sometimes I think the people generating the news these days all work at The Onion. But no. Evidently, this is legit. From the Times of London: The Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to Britain by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The outrageous proposals for the pope&#039;s visit to Britain - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The outrageous proposals for the pope&#039;s visit to Britain - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I swear, sometimes I think the people generating the news these days all work at The Onion. But no. Evidently, this is legit. From the Times of London: The Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to Britain by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-25T08:57:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The outrageous proposals for the pope's visit to Britain - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The outrageous proposals for the pope's visit to Britain - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"I swear, sometimes I think the people generating the news these days all work at The Onion. 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From the Times of London: The Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to Britain by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2010-04-25T08:57:39+00:00","author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html","name":"The outrageous proposals for the pope's visit to Britain - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-04-25T08:57:39+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-25T08:57:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/the-outrageous-proposals-for-the-popes-visit-to-britain.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The outrageous proposals for the pope&#8217;s visit to Britain &#8212; UPDATED"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}