Preparations are continuing for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain in 2010, although an official announcement is not expected until well into the new year.

Last week, U.K. government officials were at the Vatican to discuss the Pope’s travel plans while their Vatican counterparts have been in Britain also making preparations.

A senior source at the Vatican told the Register that a four-day visit looks likely in mid-September next year, with the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman being the “linchpin” of the trip.

The Holy Father is expected to make at least two keynote addresses in England: one to politicians and diplomats, which may take place in Westminster Hall, the place where St. Thomas More was condemned. The other will be to academics at the University of Oxford. He is also expected to make addresses to clergy and religious and possibly meet ecumenical and interreligious leaders and young people.

He will then travel to Birmingham for Cardinal Newman’s beatification, although it’s not yet clear if he will preside over the ceremony. Usually, beatifications are carried out by the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, but the Pope, a long admirer of the 19th-century theologian, is reportedly expected to waive that rule and beatify him himself. After the ceremony, the Holy Father will then travel up to Scotland.

The senior official denied speculation that the visit will be downgraded from a state visit because of tensions with the Anglican Communion over the apostolic constitution for Anglicans. To know better how the Pope will be honored, he advised looking at Benedict XVI’s visit to Paris last September.