THE CATHOLIC Church in the UK has been asked to return £100,000 (€114,000) donated by James Murdoch to help defray the costs of the papal visit to Scotland and England last September.
Mr Murdoch is chief executive of News Corporation Europe and Asia and the youngest son of News Corp chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch.
James Murdoch met Pope Benedict XVI in private audience on September 18th last at Westminster Cathedral in London, just before the pope celebrated Mass.
Catherine Pepinster, editor of influential UK Catholic weekly the Tablet, has asked in the current issue whether "Catholics really want their memories of one of the greatest occasions in their national Church's history to be sullied by links to the corrupt and the cruel".
She continued: “A welcome gesture now would be to return the Murdoch money and find other ways of replenishing the church coffers.”
Pepinster felt that “enjoying a few private moments with the Holy Father in return for a donation does have a touch of ‘cash for access’ about it”.
She added that this was “made plainer by the fact that when one of the party leaders who were also meeting the pope before the Saturday Mass asked to bring along a devout Catholic constituent to meet Benedict, the response was that this was not appropriate. The rich man’s gesture, it seems, is preferred to the widow’s mite.”
In 1998 Rupert Murdoch was made a Knight Commander of St Gregory by Pope John Paul II. Mr Murdoch is not a Catholic but was recommended for the honour by the then cardinal archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, after he gave money to a Church education fund. The knighthood is bestowed “to acknowledge an individual’s particular meritorious service to the Church”.
In 1999 Mr Murdoch snr donated $10 million to help build Los Angeles Catholic cathedral.
His wife at the time, Anna Torv,mother of James, is Catholic. She was Mr Murdoch’s second wife.
They divorced in June 1999. He married his current wife, Wendi Deng, the following month.
