A Vatican official suggested Sunday that Pope Benedict XVI could cancel a planned visit to Britain because of an embarrassing memo.
The pope is scheduled to visit England in September for four days. In advance of the trip, Foreign Office staffers held a brainstorming session to generate ideas for possible papal activities, including:
- Blessing a gay marriage.
- Opening an abortion clinic.
- Debuting his own brand of condoms.
Those ideas, and more, were recorded in an internal memo. The British ambassador to the Vatican has already apologized over the document, and one Foreign Office official has been reassigned to another position.
But the Sunday Telegraph reported that some are calling for a harsher Vatican response.
“This could have very severe repercussions and is embarrassing for the British government -- one has to question whether the action taken is enough," one papal source told the newspaper.
“It is disgusting. ... It’s even possible the trip could be canceled as this matter is hugely offensive.”
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