BRITAIN: Gay Activist Peter Tatchell To Host Show About Papal Visit

UK television network Channel 4 has hired famed gay activist Peter Tatchell to host an hour-long documentary examing the Pope's upcoming visit to Britain. And the nation's Catholics are very displeased.

Ann Widdecombe, the Tory politician who famously converted to Catholicism, said: “I think this will confirm the view that there probably already is in the Vatican that this is a profoundly anti-Catholic country. I wouldn’t call this the right thing for any serious broadcaster to do, but they’re doing it for the publicity, they’re doing it to stir up controversy. Mr Tatchell certainly won’t be sympathetic to his subject, so what’s the point of doing it? It won’t be skeptical, it will be hostile.” Christina Odone, the Catholic writer, said: “Peter himself would be the first to admit that he is no authority on the subject. And perhaps it would be good, rather than have some polemical, knee-jerk reaction to the Pope if Channel 4 would be interested in actually shedding light on a figure who is so important, and so often misinterpreted and misunderstood - and of whom more needs to be known. I don’t think the founding father of [gay rights pressure group] Outrage! is the right person for this.” “It’s really awful,” said Jack Valero, a prominent member of Opus Dei. “Any idea that Mr Tatchell can be impartial in presenting a programme about the Pope coming here - it’s just amazing that anybody could think that.”

Tatchell says: "This will be a robustly factual programme that explores the Pope’s personal, religious and political journey since the 1930s, as well as the motives and effects of his controversial policies." He has previously denounced the Vatican as virulently homophobic and "morally bankrupt."