Pope Benedict XVI will visit Scotland and England in September in a four-day visit combining preaching and diplomacy, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.
British officials described it as an unprecedented “papal visit with the status of a state visit,” though some of the usual trappings laid on for a visiting head of state will not be offered to the pope. An earlier visit by Pope John Paul II in 1982 was a pastoral visit only.
During his visit Benedict plans to conduct a public mass in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, where some 300,000 people swarmed a mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II during his pastoral visit in 1982. John Paul’s visit was strictly to visit his flock ”” rather than as a head of a state. John Paul was not received by the queen.
Does a Head of State visit the United Kingdom as a Head of
State without an invitation from the Sovereign?
No Robert but the Sovereign always so acts on the advice of the Prime Minister.