This story appears to bear out the French news agency I-Media's report last week that besides the trip to Malta in April 2010 (already officially announced), a papal visit to Britain in 2010 was 'almost certain'.
Pope Benedict XVI
to visit Britain next year
by Francis Elliott and Ruth Gledhill
Sept. 23, 2009
LONDON - The Holy See will announce soon the first papal visit to Britain since Pope John Paul II made a pastoral visit in 1982.
The historic event will overshadow even the triumphant visit of Pope John Paul II, which almost did not take place at all because of the Falklands War.
During his time in the country, expected to take place in September next year, Pope Benedict will have a meeting with the Queen, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and will be accorded the full panoply of a state visit.
It is possible the Pope will also stay with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
[That would be highly unlikely, since the observance during the Pope's travels abroad is that he stays at the residence of the Apostolic Nuncio to the host country. Tbe rule was never broken in all of John Paul's 104 trips abroad, nor in paul VI's before him.]
Gordon Brown extended a formal invitation during a private audience in February and preparations have been under way for some time.
A draft itinerary is understood to include London, Birmingham, Oxford and Edinburgh.
As part of the visit next year Pope Benedict XVI is not expected to visit Northern Ireland, according to British officials.
It is thought he will visit Ireland on a separate occasion.
One issue likely to be central to the celebrations will be the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a ceremony that could take place with Benedict in Birmingham, where Newman founded his Oratory.
It will be a triumphant beginning for Archbishop Vincent Nichols, near the start of his ministry leading the Westminster diocese. It will also provide a boost for Conservative leader David Cameron, likely to be Prime Minister then.
As a practising member of the Church of England attending an Anglo-Catholic parish in Kensington, Cameron is expected to find a soulmate in the conservative-minded and doctrinally sound German Pope.
The visit comes after repeated overtures from Downing Street and Catholic leaders in recent years. Tony Blair, the Church’s most famous living convert, also offered an invitation while he was Prime Minister and, in 2006, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, then Archbishop of Westminster, wrote to the Pope asking him to consider a visit.
When John Paul II visited he met the Queen but did not visit Downing Street or meet the Prime Minister.
The visit is expected to include an invitation to the Pope to address both houses of parliament at Westminster, in the same Westminster Hall where St Thomas More was tried and condemned in 1535 for opposing the Act of Supremacy.
This was the act that made King Henry VIII "supreme head" of the emerging new Protestant body, the Church of England, signalling the formal breach with Rome.
Although there was no official confirmation from Downing Street or the Holy See last night, senior Government figures are confident an announcement from the Vatican is expected soon.
Responding to speculation earlier this year a Downing Street spokesman said: "When the Prime Minister visited the Pope at the Vatican recently he extended an invitation for the Pope to visit all parts of the UK and the invitation was warmly received. The response from the Vatican spokesman was very positive."
Pope John Paul II's six-day trip to Britain in 1982 attracted huge crowds and the Church’s leaders will hope from a similar response from the country’s 4 million Catholics.
A key architect in the plans is understood to have been Britain's ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Campbell, himself a Catholic. Campbell's tenure in Rome comes to an end in October, shortly after the visit. He has raised the profile of the job to the extent that for the first time ever it is likely to become a political appointment.
One of his achievements includes facilitating the closest relations ever since the Reformation between Rome and Britain. The visits to Rome by Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown have led to an unprecedented warmth in relations between the Holy See and Britain and next year's official Papal visit to Britain is one result of that.
Senior figures already being talked about as future ambassadors include the convert from Anglicanism, Ann Widdecombe and Ampleforth-educated Michael Ancram QC.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/09/2009 20:41]