Vatican: Pope will visit Britain

VATICAN CITY, April 13 (UPI) -- A campaign led by British atheists to arrest Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the country in September will not stop his trip, the Vatican said Tuesday.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesman, discussed the British trip during a news conference on Benedict's upcoming visit to Malta, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

"For the moment it appears to be merely a stunt to get public attention," Lombardi said. "It would be very curious for the pope to be arrested during a state visit."

Lombardi said the pope does not plan to make any public statements about the growing sex abuse scandal in Malta.

Christopher Hitchens, a British-born writer now living in the United States, introduced the plan to bring charges of crimes against humanity against the pope for his role in the sex abuse scandal, which was quickly backed by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and foe of organized religion. Hitchens argues the pope cannot make a state visit to Britain since the Vatican is not a legal state.

Benedict is scheduled to meet Queen Elizabeth II and to beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism in 1845.