Not exactly general election politics per se, but interesting all the same.

Pope Benedict XVI plans to visit Britain later this year (September 16th 2010) and with the Catholic priests child abuse controversy it’s expected to be a turbulent visit with groups protesting at the Popes stance on issues like pedophilia priests, abortion and gay rights.

Pope Benedict XVI will fly to Edinburgh from Rome on September 16th 2010 assume we don’t have any volcanoes grounding the Popes plane, act of God an all that :-) He’ll meet the Queen at Holyrood Palace (the Queen will be on her annual holiday to Balmoral in Scotland at the time).

Should Britain Welcome Pope Benedict XVI’s Visit Poll?

[poll id=”15″]

The Foreign Office has made a bit of a gaff this week with a leaked document containing the following suggestions of what the Pope could do while visiting Britain:

Launch of ‘Benedict’ condoms
Review of Vatican attitude on condom use
Bless a civil partnership
Reversal of policy on women bishops/ordain woman
Open an abortion ward
Speech on equality
Statement on views over adoption (change of stance)
Training course for all bishops on child abuse allegations
Harder line on child abuse—announce sacking of dodgy bishops
Vatican sponsorship for network of AIDS clinics
Meet young unemployed people
Apologize for… …
Canonise/pseudo canonise a group
Announce whistle blowing system for child abuse cases
Go to job centre
Debate on abortion
All catholic schools should be free entry to all
Speech on democracy
Vatican and C of E funded committee on dialogue
Launch helpline for abused children

Most of these are reasonable ideas, but some are pushing it and would never get past the ‘brainstorming’ phase:

Launch of ‘Benedict’ condoms
Bless a civil partnership
Open an abortion ward

Other than the above three suggestions, with only the first being the “take the piss” suggestion, I don’t see the problem?