Ian Paisley Bashes Pope

Former DUP leader Ian Paisley has lost none of his firebrand rhetoric when it comes to the Catholic Church.

This week, the former Northern First Minister said the decision to invite Pope Benedict XVI to Britain in September was "a mistake".

And he blasted the Irish Catholic church's response to clerical child abuse as "very weak" and "an absolute disgrace".

He also stood over previous comments that the pope is "anti-Christ" and that the papacy was the "seed of the serpent".

Pope Benedict will be received by the Queen in Edinburgh at the start of his trip, which includes open air masses in Glasgow, Birmingham and London.

"I think he should not be invited to the country," said 84-year-old Paisley in an interview with the BBC, "I don't know how it has been done because they have had it all secret. Nobody knows who made the thing.

"You go and ask any minister and he says he doesn't want to have anything to do with the thing."

"The Queen is only meeting him on Scottish soil, not English soil"

Ian Paisley has been elevated to the House of Lords this week - where he will be known as Lord Bannside.

He criticised the Catholic bishops in Ireland for being "very weak" in their response to child sex abuse claims.

"A person, like some of the priests we've had, destroying the lives of young people and then going out and saying 'I can forgive sins' - it's only right that be called what it is. That is anti-Christ in teaching and doctrine," he said.

"I believe that any man that destroys a child's life, as we have seen in scores of young people in this day and generation - and then the Church having to wait until it's uncovered - is an absolute disgrace," he said.

During the wide-ranging interview, Paisley also stood over some of his most controversial beliefs regarding Catholics.

He famously heckled Pope John Paul II at the European Parliament in 1988, branding him the anti-Christ.

"Well it's quite true," he told the BBC, "the Pope does seek by his claims to replace Christ."

"The Roman Catholic Church turns to us and says you shouldn't call him the anti-Christ. Well, if a man comes to me and says he can forgive sins, then he is taking the place of Christ - no-one can forgive sins except God."