POPE OPERA - WILL THE PRESS MESS THIS UP?

                                                    Photo: Jari Kurittu via Flikr

Tabloid editors have no doubt been brainstorming their papal exclusives over the past few days. The recent destruction of Ricky Hatton, Wayne Rooney and the Pakistani cricket team  must have seemed like mere child’s play compared to an opportunity to be let lose with the Holy See on home turf. He might have been concerned about that Dan Brown bloke but he hasn't met the News of the World's investigations team yet. So am I the only one who shudders to think of the results when our rabid newspapers cover this visit?

There's a chance of course it could be treated like any normal big news event - with page 3’s Gemma from Essex proffering her opinion on contraception while wearing Rosary beads, a big white hat and not much else. Of course a senior politician could be overheard calling him a bigoted old man. Perhaps someone will try to hack his mobile. Either way - an un-christian like hatred already seemed to seep into the coverage with this offering from The Sun. Now I'm particularly looking forward to seeing how the Daily Star and Press TV handle the week's events. It's probably not the Vatican's travelling journalists - collectively known as 'The Vat Pack' by the way - that British Catholics should be worried about.

I kind of hope it's possible to have a debate about the shotcomings of the catholic church, hold it's figurehead to account over the horrific cases of child abuse, show respect to the UK's millions of catholics, hear all sides of the debate fairly and balance the story well. But I don't think every British journalist has it in them.

A colleague once told me the story of an ‘incident’ at his TV station. A foul mouthed producer was lining up a very senior religious figure for a live studio interview. Thinking her talkback could only be heard by the floor manager she struggled to get him in the correct position and eventually bellowed "tell the c*** in the dress to move left a bit." The holy man leaned forward slightly and whispered gently into the microphone: "I’m sorry does she mean me?"

If the story is true then God only knows what might happen.