Ireland bails on the Vatican

[DrinkingHarp]

http://news.yahoo.com/vatican-stunned-irish-embassy-closure-131052801.html




VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Catholic Ireland's stunning decision to close its embassy to the Vatican is a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige and may be followed by other countries which feel the missions are too expensive, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The closure brought relations between Ireland and the Vatican, once ironclad allies, to an all-time low following the row earlier this year over the Irish Church's handling of sex abuse cases and accusations that the Vatican had encouraged secrecy.

Ireland will now be the only major country of ancient Catholic tradition without an embassy to the Vatican.

"This is really bad for the Vatican because Ireland is the first big Catholic country to do this and because of what Catholicism means in Irish history," said a Vatican diplomatic source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He said Ireland informed the Vatican shortly before the announcement was made on Thursday night.

Dublin's foreign ministry said the embassy was being closed because "it yields no economic return" and that relations would be continued with an ambassador in Dublin.

The source said the Vatican was "extremely irritated" by the wording equating diplomatic missions with economic return, particularly as the Vatican sees its diplomatic role as promoting human values.

Diplomats said the Irish move might sway others to follow suit to save money because double diplomatic presences in Rome are expensive.

It was the latest crack in relations that had been seen as rock solid until a few years ago.

DAMNING REPORT

In July, the Vatican took the highly unusual step of recalling its ambassador to Ireland after Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Holy See of obstructing investigations into sexual abuse by priests.

The Irish parliament passed a motion deploring the Vatican's role in "undermining child protection frameworks" following publication of a damning report on the diocese of Cloyne.

The Cloyne report said Irish clerics concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, after the Vatican disparaged Irish child protection guidelines in a letter to Irish bishops.

While Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore denied the embassy closure was linked to the row over sexual abuse, Rome-based diplomats said they believed it probably played a major role.

"All things being equal, I really doubt the mission to the Vatican would have been on the list to get the axe without the fallout from the sex abuse scandal," one ambassador to the Vatican said, on condition of anonymity.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said he was profoundly disappointed by the decision and hoped the government would "revisit" it.

"This decision seems to show little regard for the important role played by the Holy See in international relations and of the historic ties between the Irish people and the Holy See over many centuries," Brady said in a statement.

The Vatican has been an internationally recognized sovereign city-state since 1929, when Italy compensated the Catholic Church for a vast area of central Italy known as the Papal States that was taken by the state at Italian unification in 1860.

It has diplomatic relations with 179 countries. About 80 have resident ambassadors and the rest are based in other European cities.

The Vatican guards its diplomatic independence fiercely and in the past has resisted moves by some countries to locate their envoys to the Holy See inside their embassies to Italy.

Dublin said it was closing its mission to the Vatican along with those in Iran and East Timor to help meet its fiscal goals under an EU-IMF bailout. The closures will save the government 1.25 million euros ($1.725 million) a year.

(Additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins and Conor Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Tim Pearce)
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[AZOffaly]

Well done. They should have made it clear that it was closing because of the Vatican's constant stalling and obfuscation in relation to the various scandals. If the Vatican, as a foreign state, were to behave in a similar fashion in an economic matter, we'd have closed the embassy long ago.

[Declan]

Smacks of ideological PC driven decision rather than anything else. The economic argument is bollix to my mind and I'd prefer if Gilmore was honest about the reason. I  could give him a list of countries where we maintain embassies that could have been closed before this one on value for money grounds

If the Vatican, as a foreign state, were to behave in a similar fashion in an economic matter,

If this was the criteria there'a a case for closing down our embassies in Germany and France so because of their insistence with the ECB to ride us on the bailout!!

[stew]

Well done. They should have made it clear that it was closing because of the Vatican's constant stalling and obfuscation in relation to the various scandals. If the Vatican, as a foreign state, were to behave in a similar fashion in an economic matter, we'd have closed the embassy long ago.

The Irish Government stood by and did nothing when the sex abuse scandals were going on, they are as much to blame as the Church in my opinion and they protected too many from prosecution.

I wish they had the balls to tell them why they were pulling the plug but maybe that would have been even  more hypocritical if that is possible.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Well done to the government. There is no need to explain why we are closing the embassy to the Vatican, if they don't understand then they are as thick as they seem. They can share with Italy or sod off. If others follow our example they may have to share with Italy or become a forgotten diplomatic backwater.

A good day for Ireland, Saudi Arabia loses their one too. A great day for Ireland Vs the God botherers.

[muppet]

Well done. They should have made it clear that it was closing because of the Vatican's constant stalling and obfuscation in relation to the various scandals. If the Vatican, as a foreign state, were to behave in a similar fashion in an economic matter, we'd have closed the embassy long ago.

Agreed although if this time scale is anything to go by we will burn the Anglo bondholders in around 30 years time, shortly after we arrest Seanie (not Magpie).

[mylestheslasher]

Well done. They should have made it clear that it was closing because of the Vatican's constant stalling and obfuscation in relation to the various scandals. If the Vatican, as a foreign state, were to behave in a similar fashion in an economic matter, we'd have closed the embassy long ago.

Agreed although if this time scale is anything to go by we will burn the Anglo.  bondholders in around 30 years time, shortly after we arrest Seanie (not Magpie).

Good call and should've been done earlier. Having diplomatic relations with a state that obstructed investigations into the rape of Irish children is not possible and not acceptable.

[stew]

Well done to the government. There is no need to explain why we are closing the embassy to the Vatican, if they don't understand then they are as thick as they seem. They can share with Italy or sod off. If others follow our example they may have to share with Italy or become a forgotten diplomatic backwater.

A good day for Ireland, Saudi Arabia loses their one too. A great day for Ireland Vs the God botherers.

you are a sad, sad man.

Get off your anti God rants and get a life, people dont give a shite what you or i believe.

by the way Mt patriot, how does the queens shilling tasts these days???

Hypocrite.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Well done to the government. There is no need to explain why we are closing the embassy to the Vatican, if they don't understand then they are as thick as they seem. They can share with Italy or sod off. If others follow our example they may have to share with Italy or become a forgotten diplomatic backwater.

A good day for Ireland, Saudi Arabia loses their one too. A great day for Ireland Vs the God botherers.

you are a sad, sad man.

Get off your anti God rants and get a life, people dont give a shite what you or i believe.

by the way Mt patriot, how does the queens shilling tasts these days???

Hypocrite.

A you poor thing, the Irish government telling your Pope where to sod off to.

A your playing the emmigration card, so what, you would probably sit your life on the dole rather than finding work if you ever where in that situtation, now would you talke the queens shilling dole? 

[muppet]

http://politico.ie/social-issues/8280-ireland-has-no-need-for-an-embassy-in-the-vatican.html

Ireland has no need for an embassy in the Vatican
WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2012 10:44    VINCENT BROWNE        



Many convinced Catholics believe it would be appropriate now for the Vatican to pare back the pomp and pretence, as a signal of the humility it nowadays protests. By Vincent Browne.

An Italian monsignor visited a drapery store in Rome in early March 1923 and ordered warm underwear, most likely long johns and woolly vests.

This suspicious event became known to the Italian press, which correctly deduced the monsignor was about to go to Ireland as an envoy from Pope Pius XI – suspicious because it was unusual, even for monsignors, to purchase long johns and woolly vests in early March in drapery shops in Rome just as the glorious Roman summer was to arrive.

The monsignor was Salvatore Luzio and his arrival in Ireland on 19 March 1923, was greeted by the then government and by the Irish Catholic hierarchy with dismay. This was because the Cumann na nGaedheal government regarded his arrival as menacing, the hierarchy regarded his arrival as meddlesome and because the monsignor did not bother making contact with the government or the hierarchy for several weeks after his arrival, choosing first to meet the leaders of the Anti-Treatyites at a secret location.
The point of his mission was peace, to end the Civil War that was causing such slaughter including the serial executions of prisoners without trial. But just at that time, the government side in the Civil War was on the point of defeating the insurgents, which made the papal intervention very much unwelcome. The Irish bishops were apprehensive that the envoy's arrival would presage far greater oversight of their doings by Rome, which they believed would be unhelpful.

The papal peace envoy's visit was a disaster and he was recalled, which seemed to please everyone, except the clerics in the Irish College in Rome, who had warm feelings for Éamon de Valera and who had cajoled the Vatican to send the envoy. Salvatore Luzio said at the time he was "caciato in un ginepraio" (thrown into a quagmire).

There was no great enthusiasm in the early years of the Free State for diplomatic relations with the Vatican, although there were regular protestations of fidelity – WT Cosgrave on a visit to the pope in the summer of 1923 proclaimed: "Humbly prostrate at the feet of your Holiness, we, your Irish children, offer our loyal devotion and deep affection."

Priority was given to establishing diplomatic missions in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Washington and only later on – in the late 1920s – was there a decision to establish, if possible, diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

The arguments in favour of doing so were: Rome had prestige which neither Berlin nor Paris enjoyed; diplomatic relations with the Vatican would enhance the legitimacy of the Free State; the presence of a papal nuncio in Dublin would give the Irish government influence over the appointment of bishops; and an Irish envoy at the Vatican would counteract the pro-Republican influence of the Irish College in Rome. But there were problems.

First, the protocols of diplomacy had to acknowledge the head of state in Ireland at the time was not the president of the Executive Council (the taoiseach in our present arrangements) but the British monarch, at the time, King George V – this was merely embarrassing, however, for the British were willing and later did facilitate the establishment of relations. Another problem was the Irish bishops were not at all keen on the idea because they feared the presence of a papal nuncio here would curtail their independence.

This meant that the negotiations with the Vatican on the establishment of diplomatic representation had to be done behind the backs of the Irish bishops, and it also meant that there was a long delay between the appointment of an Irish envoy to the Vatican and the appointment of a papal nuncio to Dublin.

The arguments now in favour of a separate representation at the Vatican are very much weaker than they were in 1929. There is no special prestige now in having diplomatic representations in Rome; whether we have a permanent mission at the Vatican makes no difference to the legitimacy of the Irish State; influencing the appointment of bishops here is no longer of any concern for it hardly matters who are appointed bishops; and the Irish College in Rome is hardly a powerhouse any more. Neither would it be acceptable, incidentally, for any Irish political leader to speak about being "humbly prostrate at the feet of your Holiness", and while there is among many devotion and affection for the papacy, there is not much "loyal devotion".

There is also, I suspect, a scepticism among many convinced Catholics that it is no longer appropriate for the Vatican to be masquerading as a "state", with accompanying trappings, including a huge diplomatic corps. Many of them believe it would be appropriate now for the Vatican to pare back the pomp and pretence, as a signal of the humility it nowadays protests. All the more so following the revelations of its central role in the concealment of the sexual abuse of children around the world, an abuse made all the easier by the bogus authority and stature the priests of the church conveyed through that pomp and pretence.

(I have drawn much in this column from Dermot Keogh's Ireland and the Vatican: the Politics and Diplomacy of Church-State Relations 1922-1960, Cork University Press, 1995.)

[seafoid]

Mr Cowen said the Vatican acted in good faith. 

[DrinkingHarp]

http://news.yahoo.com/irish-envoy-pope-consistent-stopping-abuse-144522870.html




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New Irish envoy: Pope consistent on stopping abuse
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK | Associated Press – 32 mins ago...
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DUBLIN (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has been "relentless and consistent" in seeking to oust child abusers from the priesthood worldwide, the pontiff's new American envoy to Ireland said Sunday in his first homily here.

Archbishop Charles Brown, a 52-year-old Manhattan native and veteran Vatican insider, was making his first public address since officially taking up his post as Irish papal nuncio three days ago.

"From the beginning, Pope Benedict was resolute and determined to put into place changes which would give the church the ability to deal more effectively with those who abuse trust. ... Pope Benedict has been relentless and consistent on this front," Brown told worshippers and diplomatic guests at a service at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral.

The first-time diplomat faces a delicate repair job in Ireland, a traditionally Catholic nation that has seen Mass attendance plummet in line with nearly two decades of pedophile-priest scandals.

Last year Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Vatican of overseeing a cover-up culture that encouraged the rape of children. The Vatican took two months to issue a legalistic rebuttal that sidestepped its refusal to help a series of Irish state-ordered investigations.

Ireland then closed its Vatican embassy but insisted this was purely a cost-cutting measure, a claim widely disbelieved in Ireland since the country's ongoing struggle to stave off national bankruptcy.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, widely considered to be Ireland's most reform-minded Catholic leader, told reporters he expected that Ireland and the Vatican would compromise on arrangements to open a new, cheaper Irish embassy in Rome. Ireland still operates one embassy in the Italian capital, but the Vatican insists that countries fund completely separate diplomatic facilities.

Speaking to reporters outside the cathedral, Martin said he was confident that the Vatican would permit Ireland to open "a leaner embassy" that is separate but on the same site as Ireland's Italian embassy.

In his homily, Brown reiterated the Vatican's longheld line that its leaders have never obstructed Irish efforts to identify and punish several hundred child abusers in parishes and religious orders.

Brown noted his own 17-year work as an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful Vatican body that enforces church policies — including the removal of pedophiles from the priesthood. Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, oversaw the body from 1981 until his promotion to pope in 2005.

"I speak from my own experience when I tell you that Pope Benedict was scandalized and dismayed as he learned about the tragedy of abuse perpetrated by some members of the clergy and of religious congregations," Brown said. "He felt deeply the wounds of those who had been harmed and who so often had not been listened to."

Ratzinger in 2001 was responsible for a new church edict ordering bishops worldwide to forward all known abuse cases to the congregation, so that offending priests could be more effectively defrocked under terms of the church's own canon laws.

But that and several other key church messages, including the pope's 2010 papal letter to the Irish people, have ignored accusations that Vatican policies discouraged Irish bishops from telling police about crimes. To this day, official Vatican policy remains ambiguous on the matter, stressing the need to observe the church's own rulebook.

A decade of Irish fact-finding commissions into the scandals has determined that church officials did not tell police of any crimes until the mid-1990s and only because Irish abuse victims had started to sue the church, challenging decades of Irish deference to church authority. One bishop was found to have continued to cover up crimes as recently as 2008.

The Vatican refused to respond to letters sent by Irish investigators seeking access to the church's secret files on abuse cases in Rome. The Vatican later said it couldn't respond because the investigators had failed to file their information requests through the Irish government.

More than 14,000 people have received abuse settlements in Ireland exceeding euro1.2 billion ($1.6 billion). The payouts have been funded largely by taxpayers rather than the church, another source of continuing church-state tensions.
..

[Eamonnca1]

Will it ever be Ireland without a prayer?

By John Meagher
Saturday February 18 2012

It was the front page headline of The Times -- "Christianity on the rack as judge bans public prayer" -- that captured the mood of conservative Britain this week.

In a decision that is seen as a significant breakthrough for the secular movement in the UK, a High Court outlawed formal acts of prayer in the chambers of town and city halls across the country.

Senior figures from the Church of England and other Christian denominations reacted angrily to the ruling, with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, saying it represented the "marginalisation of Christianity".

He added: "I am horrified by this. It does look as though the Christian voice is being silenced and I am very worried by the dangers of a creeping secularism."

The landmark case has attracted plenty of attention from secular groups here, and it has prompted Atheist Ireland to send a letter to all members of the respective Committees on Procedure and Privilege of both the Dáil and the Seanad to ask them to stop the practice of saying prayers before every session of both houses.

Chairman Michael Nugent writes: "We request that the Oireachtas cease the practice of starting daily business with the prayer: 'Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ our Lord. Amen.'

"It is inappropriate that any of our parliamentarians should publicly ask a god, particularly a specific variation of a specific god, to direct their actions and every word and work of theirs. It suggests either (a) that they are being directed in their work by messages that they believe come from a supernatural being, or (b) that they are taking part in the prayer without believing it to be true."

The Labour Senator, Ivana Bacik, has been vocal on this issue in the past. "I don't think the prayer as it exists is appropriate in a pluralist society," she says. "I think the Dublin City Council policy of starting sessions with a minute's silence is far more fitting."

Bacik has championed secularism since entering public life. "My views annoyed a lot of people early on, and I suppose they still do," she says. "But let's just say the hate mail isn't as frequent as it once was.

"Ireland has changed enormously over the past couple of decades and it's a markedly more secular country than it was even 20 years ago. Just look at the proportion of people who are opting for a non-religious wedding nowadays."

Bacik has drafted a bill which aims to give humanist wedding celebrants the same legal status as civil registrars and clergy. The bill was passed unopposed in the Seanad and she fully expects it to be ratified by the Dail later this year.

The Humanist Association of Ireland spokesman Brian Whiteside believes this Civil Registration (Amendment) Bill will be a significant milestone for secularists. "It's in keeping with the changing face of the country we live in today," he says.

'We're doing 10 times more humanist wedding ceremonies than we were doing as recently as five years ago. A new generation of people don't want to have a church ceremony because they have no religious beliefs.

"It's the same story with funerals -- we're doing more and more humanist ceremonies, including that of [acclaimed documentary maker] Mary Raftery that got quite a bit of attention last month. Every single day, I receive calls from people who ask me how they can ensure that they receive a humanist funeral when they die. I tell them to make their wishes clear to their nearest and dearest."

Whiteside says the growing acceptance of the humanist movement can be gauged from the high number of official invites the association now receives, not least when a representative from the Humanist Association was formally asked to be present for the inauguration of President Michael D Higgins.

"I think that came at the behest of the President himself," Whiteside says. "It was an acknowledgement that many people in our society do not believe in a god, but their moral compass is no less for that."

The religious dimension of the Presidential Oath -- and the oath sworn by all judges -- has long been criticised by secularists. The Humanist Association has been running the "Unbelievable" campaign to raise awareness of the issue for the past three years, and it is a central plank of an Atheist Ireland programme called "Five Steps to Civil Rights in Secular Ireland".

Michael Kelly, deputy editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper and a former press officer at the Vatican, is concerned about the growth of "aggressive secularism".

"Despite what they say, these people are not interested in pluralism," he says. "Instead, they want to push religion into a completely private sphere. It's like the 1950s in reverse.

"The Catholic Church abused its power in many ways in the past -- but the church that some secularists rail against is consigned to history.

''The fact remains that the majority of people in this country consider themselves to be Christian and I think some of the aggressive secularists would have been surprised by the vehemence of the opposition to Eamon Gilmore's decision to close the Irish Embassy at the Vatican."

Senator Rónán Mullen has been heartened by the widespread opposition to the closure. "Ordinary Catholics feel that it was a vindictive, petty step by the Government," he says. "And I believe what we've seen in recent weeks is a wider Ireland -- not just a traditional Catholic Ireland -- that has stood up to be counted on the issue too. It's a decision that's not pluralist or liberal in the literal sense of the word and it strikes me as a retrogressive step. We need to keep the channels of communication open, not closed."

Labour is seen by many, Mullen included, as the main driver in moving towards a more secular Ireland. He notes that there has been considerable disquiet in recent weeks over revelations that the party has proposed a motion for its forthcoming conference that would seek to "screen" civil servants who are likely to have to deal with the Catholic Church in the course of their work for any sign of "inappropriate deference" to the Church.

"It's a new form of intolerance," he says, "a Reds-under-the-beds scenario that's every bit as invidious as the intolerance shown by some religious people towards the views of others over the years."

New Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has been vocal about secularism, not least in education. In an interview with the Irish Catholic, the former school principal made his position clear: "Religious ethos has no place in the education sector of a modern republic."

But this week, Ó Ríordáin was in no mood to discuss the matter: "Every time I say something about the Catholic Church, I get hammered. I'm seen as the anti-Catholic Church guy, so no, I've nothing to say."

He was also unwilling to discuss the blasphemy law, introduced by Dermot Ahern in the dying days of the last government. Rónán Mullen considers it to be a harmless piece of legislation, but Ivana Bacik and Michael Nugent believe it damages Ireland's reputation internationally.

Nugent says: "There had been no demand for a blasphemy bill, yet it seemed to end up on the statute books before it dawned on anybody what was happening. People have been a bit laissez faire about it, thinking 'oh here we go -- it's Fianna Fáil being mad again' -- but it's been cited by countries like Pakistan at the UN to justify their own blasphemy laws, so it has had a negative impact internationally. It needs to be repealed as a matter of urgency."

Meanwhile, Nugent awaits the response to his letter about prayers at the Oireachtas. "It might be seen by some, even atheists, as a comparatively minor detail," he says, "but those prayers infringe upon the human right to freedom of conscience by forcing people to reveal information about their religious or non-religious philosophical beliefs."

- John Meagher

There the god squad go again. If a religious person feels strongly about their belief system they're described as "devout" If an atheist feels strongly about their belief system they're described as "aggressive" or "militant."  Why the hell shouldn't religion be pushed into the private sphere? It's a private matter.

[Pangurban]

Is atheism not also a private matter, in your view. You certainly would not think so, if you listen to the hate filled bellows of its adherents who want its philosophy to be societies agenda

[J70]

Is atheism not also a private matter, in your view. You certainly would not think so, if you listen to the hate filled bellows of its adherents who want its philosophy to be societies agenda

Are atheists asking that parliamentary and local government meetings begin with a screed against religion or gods?

No, they merely asking that bodies representing the people cease and desist from expressions of religion representing particular sects. The only ones who want their philosophy to be society's agenda are those who want the christian prayers preserved.