John Cooney: Enda acting like Scrooge as embassy row becomes a holy show
THE row over the Vatican embassy is a heady cocktail that mixes religion and politics, which would have not been contemplated by even the bravest of Irish Governments in the past.
Now the refusal of Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore to reverse their decision to close Ireland's embassy to the Vatican has mobilised the country's Catholic faithful.
They are mystified as to why the nation's two most senior politicians remain deaf to their pleas not to deprive them of their heavenly plot in Rome.
On an issue about prayers and votes, it remains inexplicable why Kenny and Gilmore are so dismissive of the wishes of massgoers.
It is a secular mystery of our times as to why the Coalition is ignoring the warnings. It overrides at its peril the silent constituency of rosary beads and daily prayers.
When logic is thrown out of the window, the least unreasonable explanation is surely that after just one year in government, the Fine Gael and Labour leaders are fooling themselves. They believe that a credulous public is prepared to swallow their mantra that the closure of the embassy to the Holy See looks well on the petty cash savings' ledger.
Of the two leaders, Gilmore is the less damaged politically by insulting the Holy See. Conspiracy theorists, after all, regard Gilmore's key henchmen, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn and Public Expenditure supremo Brendan Howlin, as secularisers.
Much more vulnerable from internal party criticism is the Taoiseach, whose fragile Fine Gael franchise is a mixture of 1930s flirtation with the fascist-minded Blueshirts and Dr Garret FitzGerald's 1980s brand of Christian social democracy.
It was Mr Kenny who launched the extraordinary Dail diatribe against "the narcissism" in Pope Benedict XVI's Vatican last July.
He thundered against Rome's failure to cooperate with the Murphy Commission's probe into clerical child sexual abuse and the cover-ups by church leaders. This post-Cloyne mood captured the seething anger felt by the nation at the Vatican's unaccountability. It was much applauded.
It led to the departure of veteran career diplomat Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, and his replacement by a young American theologian from the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Charles John Brown -- all of this without apparent rancour on the Vatican's part.
But since then the Vatican issued a lengthy defence of its relations with the Murphy Commission last autumn.
It has continued with its own internal process of church renewal, on the basis of a yet unpublished report by foreign investigators appointed personally by Pope Benedict.
In the intervening months, public opinion has changed with a slim majority in favour of Pope Benedict coming to Dublin in June to lead the 50th International Eucharistic Congress.
Last week, too, the Fine Gael parliamentary party called with one voice for a reopening of Ireland's embassy to the Holy See. Unfazed, Mr Kenny, like Mr Gilmore, is not for turning in our harsh economic times.
By eating political humble pie, Mr Kenny could have acknowledged that he has come to appreciate the value an embassy to the Holy See gives an accredited country.
It offers access to its unrivalled diplomatic intelligence network, one to which Ireland's heads of religious and missionary orders contribute through locating their headquarters in Rome.
Both the Taoiseach and Tanaiste have offered a welcome if Pope Benedict decides to accept the invitation of the Bishops' Conference of Ireland to attend the Eucharistic Congress.
This has been somewhat deflated by Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin's warning that he believes that the Irish Church is not spiritually ready for a papal visit.
In the meantime it is hard to avoid the conclusion that a groundswell of anger from the Catholic heartland is being underestimated by the Government, and that there is disconnection between the Government and the Catholic constituency. Ordinary Catholics feel betrayed by the closure decision, and representations made on their behalf by Fine Gael deputies have fallen on deaf ears.
As he weighs up the pros and cons of whether to come to Ireland in June, Pope Benedict must be praying for papal infallibility to be extended to an understanding of the euro-pinching attitude of Kenny and Gilmore.
The German pontiff must recall fondly his triumphant visits to Scotland and England, and re-read with approval the declaration of British Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain is a Christian country.
The birth of Charles Dickens 200 years ago is celebrated in Britain today, where a poll has found that the most popular character created by the scribe's fertile pen was Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserable miser.
In Ireland today the Taoiseach and Tanaiste are competing with each other for the role of a Celtic Ebenezer Scrooge, with their persistent disclaimers that the closure of Ireland's embassy to the Holy See was purely intended to save the taxpayer a few euro.
Unrepentant humbug pedlars.
Irish Independent
