Cameron offers warm welcome to Pope

Prime Minister David Cameron has recorded a video message in which he offers the Pope a “very warm welcome” to Britain.

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Britain on Thursday for the first by a pontiff in twenty years and the first official state visit by a pope.

The Prime Minister says in his video, posted on the No 10 website, that the visit is “incredibly important and historic”.

“It’s a great honour for our country. These will be a very special four days not just for our six million Catholics but for many people of faith right across Britain and millions more watching around the world,” he said.

“It’s a unique opportunity to celebrate the enormous contribution all our faith communities make to our society and to celebrate their role in helping to build a bigger and stronger society.”

Mr Cameron went on to say that society should not be about materialism but shared values and working for the common good.

He said the Holy See was a partner of the Government in tackling poverty disease and climate change, promoting multi-faith dialogue and working for peace in the world.

He added: “Not everyone will agree with everything the Pope says but that should not prevent us from acknowledging that the Pope’s broader message can help challenge us to ask searching questions about our society and how we treat ourselves and each other.”

The Pope’s visit has faced strong opposition from secularists and atheists. In a letter to the Guardian today, public figures including Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman and Professor AC Grayling say that the Pope is welcome to tour Britain but “should not be given the honour of a state visit to this country”.

They criticise the Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of condoms, abortion, equal rights for homosexuals, and its handling of child abuse by clergy.

“We reject the masquerading of the Holy See as a state and the Pope as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to amplify the international influence of the Vatican,” they said.

Not all secularists are speaking with one voice, however. Humanist think tank, the Institute of Ideas, has accused fellow secularists of engaging in a “New Atheist witch hunt” that contradicts their own professed views on tolerance.

Institute of Ideas director Claire Fox said: “While many reacted with horror at France and Belgium with their intolerant ban on the burqa, the response of some secular campaigners show that such demonisation of religious groups is alive and kicking in the UK.”

She said that the popular argument of secularists that the Pope is the “leader of the world’s largest paedophile ring” had more in common with “contemporary heresy-hunting” than the free- thinking spirit of Enlightenment secularism.

Fox added, “There are many reasons to criticise religious leaders, and plenty are coming from within the Church itself, but secularists really should take the opportunity to remind themselves of the Enlightenment values they claim to stand for – such as tolerance, freedom of thought and conscience and a human being as a rational subject - rather than focusing on what they hate about the Church and, by extension, Catholics.”

The Pope’s visit has been welcomed by Christians of all denominations, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Salvation Army Commissioner Betty Matear.

Commissioner Matear said that the visit should be a “cause for hope” for Christians.

“The focus of such events is the presence of God, through His Spirit. We would do well to pray that the message of God will not be deafened in the cacophony and clamour,” she said.

Yesterday, Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols played down talk of indifference to the visit and poor ticket sales, saying that Catholics are “looking forward to this visit very much indeed”.

The Pope arrives in Edinburgh on Thursday and will take part in an open air mass in Glasgow in the afternoon before flying to London. He will meet the Archbishop of Canterbury on Friday and hold another open-air mass in Hyde Park on Saturday. On the final day of his visit on Sunday, the Pope will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman at Crofton Park in Birmingham.