AUTHOR Philip Pullman last night stood by his opposition to the Pope’s state visit to the UK.

The His Dark Materials writer put his name to a letter, signed by 49 other high profile celebrities including Stephen Fry, which said the Pope should not have been given the honour of a state visit because of Benedict XVI’s opposition to gay rights and the failure to root out child abuse in the Catholic Church.

Mr Pullman said: “I have no objection to the Pope coming as a private citizen to this country.

“The problem is he is not and we are seeing the Queen having to dress in black before she can talk to him.

“His only claim to be here is as the head of a religion.”

The author said it was also wrong that the British taxpayer was faced with having to effectively “subsidise” the visit, covering the cost of policing and security.

He added: “It is even more inappropriate when his spokesman said in an interview that arriving at Heathrow seemed like landing in a Third World country. What are they playing at?”

Mr Pullman said he had no reservations about making public his views, despite having earlier received hate mail over his book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which retells the story of Jesus.

Speaking yesterday at the launch at the city’s Bodleian Library of Oxford’s bid to become World Book Capital in 2014, he said: “One of the great privileges in this country is having the freedom to speak our minds and express ourselves without the fear of being put into prison or having our heads cut off.

“This library is a great champion of that sort of freedom.”