The Catholic Church in Scotland has insisted its plans for the Papal visit are “unchanged” amid claims the historic event is in disarray with spiralling costs and could be scaled down.

Senior church sources said planning for the Scottish leg of the four-day visit was “on time and on budget” and that recently emerged problems were confined to England.

The part of the bill that must be paid by the Catholic Church across the UK is now being put at as much as £14m, twice the earlier estimate, which could lead to events being scaled down or even cancelled.

Although unrelated to the costs issue, it has also emerged that the attendance of the open-air mass at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park will be closer to around 130,000 than 200,000 due to the demographic attending.

Since many of those at Bellahouston will be elderly or in family groups, and will be there for the best part of the afternoon and evening, it is anticipated that the capacity will have to be brought down to give worshippers more space.

Details of the burgeoning costs come a fortnight after Catholics across the UK were asked to donate money as part of collections to fund the visit.

• Full story at The Herald.

• Filed under Papal Visit, Roman Catholic Church, Scottish Christian News Monitor.