By Terry Sanderson
National Secular Society
March 19, 2010
http://www.secularism.org.uk/119331.html
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There seem to be two Pope Benedict the XVIs at large at the moment, each operating independently in parallel universes.
One is at the centre of a seedy international conspiracy to cover up child abuse on a massive scale and the other is the “Holy Father” who is welcomed to this country as some kind of conquering hero. The Government Minister organising the religious jamboree, the piously Catholic Jim Murphy, said: “This is an historic visit at an important time. The Pope will receive a very warm welcome from Catholics and people of all faiths.”
At the press conference (described as “low-key” by one reporter) announcing the details, Mr Murphy said that the Government will be shelling out “only” ?15 million on the visit (not the ?20 million the nasty NSS had been derided for estimating). But then he added “the policing will be paid from existing budgets”.
Ah yes, the policing. A small matter of a few bobbies controlling the massive crowds, right? Not if previous papal visits are anything to go by. If you look at the research on the Concordat Watch website, you will see that “existing budgets” will be stretched to the limit by the security demands made by a papal visit. Given this cost is massively increased by being at multiple locations that probably means our estimate was considerably on the low side.
And who will be paying for this? Why, you and I will, through our taxes. “Existing budgets” are still from taxpayer’s funds and simply mean that something else will have to be cut.
Mr Murphy was anxious to hit back at the NSS at the press conference. After his sleight of hand over the costs involved, he then said that our 28,000-name petition, delivered to Downing Street last week wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on because it contained names like “Donald Duck.”
Mr Murphy forgot to say that every on-line petition is afflicted by this kind of effort to undermine it. Even the ones on the Number 10 site are not immune.
The NSS took great care to remove all such attempts to spoil the petition before it was delivered to Downing Street, but even after all such stuff was removed, there were still 28,150 legitimate names.
Mr Murphy also claimed that our petition called for the Pope not to come to this country. That was a further outright falsehood. The petition specifically said that we acknowledge the right of the pope to come here – the petition was entirely about who should pay for the visit.
But the media had a bit of a problem on Tuesday, when Pope Number One — the seedy protector of paedophiles — came face to face with Pope Number Two: the “Holy Father”.
At the same time as it was being announced that the Pope would “beatify” a saint in Coventry, an appeal court down the road in Birmingham was ruling that “The Holy Father’s” church must pay ?32,500 to a Coventry man with learning difficulties for the abuse he suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest, Father Christopher Clonan.
Once again the Church was doing its damnedest not to pay. It was claiming that because the man who had been abused was not a Catholic and the priest had therefore abused him outside office hours, so to speak, it wasn’t the Church’s duty to compensate him.
Last year Mr Justice Jack, at London’s High Court, upheld the man’s claims of sexual abuse. But he ruled that the assaults by Fr Clonan were not so closely connected with his employment or quasi-employment by the Church that it would be fair and just to hold the Church liable. He said that Fr Clonan’s association with Maga (as the man was known in court) was founded on his use of the teenager to wash his car, do cleaning in the Presbytery and other houses and to iron his clothes. “That employment was not a priestly activity. Fr Clonan did not do anything to draw the claimant into the activities of the Church.”
On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal disagreed. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Longmore and Lady Justice Smith said that the Church was vicariously liable for the assaults on Maga. The Church was also negligent because a complaint allegedly made about Fr Clonan in 1974 was not followed up.
The Church intended to appeal the decision further to the Supreme Court in an effort to wash their hands of the whole nasty business but was denied permission to do so. Now two other victims of “Father” Clonan have come forward and hope to make the Church pay for their suffering, too. So far the Church’s bill is estimated at ?185,000.
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