Catholic Caucus: Pro-life leaders slam abrupt closure of Irish embassy to Vatican

ROME, November 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a move that came as a shock to Vatican observers last week, the Irish government abruptly announced the closure of its embassy to the Holy See. While the official word from both the Vatican and the Irish coalition government is that the move was not meant as a diplomatic slight, there is wide agreement among pro-life leaders that the move is a deliberate diplomatic insult and an attempt to move Ireland away from its traditional Catholic roots, which undergird the country’s strong pro-life laws.

The government claimed that the decision was made for financial reasons, but has since confirmed that the closure would save less than €700,000 a year, a drop in the bucket for a government that that has sent €30 million to UNFPA, the UN body linked to coercive abortion, sterilization and population control programs in China. Under the new arrangements, Ireland will maintain a nonresident ambassador to the Holy See and keep its Italian embassy in Rome open. Also to be closed are the Irish embassies in Iran and Timor Leste

I was stationed in Rome 1976-1979. My office in the Embassy was directly across the hall from the office of the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. IIRC, Henry Cabot Lodge was the ambassador. Many countries at the time maintained their missions to the Vatican in their embassies to the Italian Republic in Rome. I think it was in the mid 1980s that we opened a physical embassy in the Vatican. I’m sure that Ireland will seek to have their ambassador accredited to the Holy See. Roman traffic is bad, but not bad enough to keep the Irish Ambassador from visiting the Vatican regularly.

I see what is happening in Ireland as having happened elsewhere, for similar reasons. That is, where the Catholic church had and abused *political* power, over hundreds of years, it built up immense amounts of hatred against the church.

Ireland is and will remain predominantly Catholic. However, like Mexico and many nations before it, many will never get over how much they hate the church for what it did.

For example, some 30,000 children were sent to Catholic order workhouses in the 20th Century, where they faced humiliation, beatings and rape.

“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse concluded.

The Catholic religious orders that ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s offered public words of apology, shame and regret Wednesday. But when questioned, their leaders indicated they would continue to protect the identities of clergy accused of abuse — men and women who were never reported to police, and were instead permitted to change jobs and keep harming children.

Deeply implicated were The Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy.

A government-appointed panel has paid 12,000 survivors of the schools, orphanages and other church-run residences an average of $90,000 each — on condition they surrender their right to sue either the church or state. About 2,000 more claims are pending. Irish Catholic leaders cut a controversial deal with the government in 2001 that capped the church’s contribution at $175 million — a fraction of the final cost.

But in the final analysis, entire families are now being raised to remember and despise what the church did to their parents, to never forgive the church for this, and likely to seek revenge against the church as they can.

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