Internal Foreign Office memo filled with ironic suggestions about the pope's September visit to the UK has prompted an official apology to the Vatican
Stephen Bates and Fiona Winward in Rome
An internal Foreign Office memo about this September's papal visit to Britain which started as a Friday afternoon joke, today has resulted in a formal government apology to the Vatican.
The memorandum, apparently written following a brainstorming session by a group of junior civil servants planning events for the four-day visit by Pope Benedict XVI, suggested among other ideas that he might like to start a helpline for abused children, sack "dodgy" bishops, open anabortion ward, launch his own brand of condoms, preside at a civil partnership, perform forward rolls with children, apologise for the Spanish armada and sing a song with the Queen.
It was circulated across Whitehall, including to Downing Street with a covering note suggesting it should not be shown externally and adding, unnecessarily perhaps, that its ideas were far-fetched.
The joke fell very flat indeed after the memo was leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, with David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said to be appalled, a grovelling apology from his department and a formal expression of regret offered to the Vatican by the British ambassador Francis Campbell.
In a statement, the Foreign Office said: "This is clearly a foolish document that does not in any way reflect UK government or Foreign Office policy or views. Many of the ideas … are clearly ill-judged, naive and disrespectful. The text was not cleared, or shown to ministers or senior officials before circulation. As soon as senior officials became aware of the document it was withdrawn from circulation. The individual responsible has been transferred to other duties. He has been told orally and in writing that this was a serious error of judgment and has accepted this view".
The civil servant responsible, said to be in his 20s, appears to have written the document on a Friday in early March, some weeks before the latest waves of child abuse accusations engulfed the Catholic church, which has indeed resulted in the departure of several bishops, including two this weekend, in Ireland and Belgium. Among the memo's other suggestions were that the now-Catholic Tony Blair and the singer Susan Boyle might be suitable candidates to be introduced to the pope, while the aggressive atheist Richard Dawkins and Wayne Rooney – who married in a Catholic ceremony – might be less suitable.
The ludicrous nature of the suggestions did not prevent some within the Catholic church reacting to what they claimed was a disrespectful slur, demanding apologies that many senior Vatican officials have in recent weeks declined to offer children abused in church care.
Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham told the Sunday Telegraph that the memorandum was appalling, before somewhat moderating his views overnight and telling the BBC that he hoped the memo had been lighthearted, adding: "That in itself can be dangerous if these memos move around departments. They tend to gain momentum".
While the Vatican itself made no comment, Cardinal Renato Martino told the Mail on Sunday : "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 [those of] millions of Catholics is very offensive indeed".
The response was more intemperate on the web. A Catholic commentator for the Daily Telegraph denounced "snide, cheap and ignorant prejudice [which has] flourished under this government and its civil servants … wall-to-wall secularists".
Commenters on the site demanded the official should be sacked and called for criminal charges against "atheist scumbags". One, londiniensis, wrote: "Once Oxbridge scrapped its Latin entrance paper and oiks began to be actively encouraged to apply, this sort of degeneration was almost bound to happen."
It was left to Jack Valero, a spokesman for the organisation Catholic Voices, to add a note of moderation: "I think it is a joke that has gone wrong – light relief out of control. I think Catholics will just take it like this – they'll think about it today and then forget about it. In the Catholic church we are used to forgiveness – it's part of our culture".
In Italy, centrist newspaper La Stampa reported the story under the headline "Too much humour, we're British", and, while describing the proposals as "intentionally absurd", said the author of the memo "certainly hasn't helped improve the anti-papal feeling that certain sectors are trying to feed in Great Britain ahead of the pope's visit".
Corriere della Sera also said that the incident "risked spoiling the climate of expectation" leading up to the visit.
The Guardian
