Vatican exit
•I am appalled that the Government is considering ending its diplomatic presence in the Vatican. Ireland has had an association with the Holy See since Pope Celestine I sent his first envoy to Ireland in the early fifth century.
Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore claims that this decision was taken due to a supposed nil economic return from maintaining an embassy in Rome, but I wonder is that sufficient justification?
Besides, when one peruses the Department of Foreign Affairs website, it appears that the State maintains a variety of diplomatic missions in many far-flung states. We maintain a consulate in Zimbabwe (at 2 Robert Mugabe road, Harare) and I wonder what 'economic return' do we derive from bilateral relations with that state?
I believe the proposed savings are trivial, comparatively speaking and I believe other cost-saving measures should be considered, such as the salaried remuneration of senior department civil servants. Finally, Mr Gilmore has an opportunity to upstage Taoiseach Enda Kenny and give Catholics a bloody nose. No doubt the Irish Independent will be deluged with approving missives from 'liberal' readers stoutly justifying this decision, but I believe their motivation is less to do with the state of our finances than simple, anti-Catholic bigotry.
Martan O Conghaile
Castlebrook, Dundrum, D14
Closing our embassy in the Vatican has occasioned much understandable controversy, with most commentators noting that the proximity of the decision to the publication of the Cloyne Report and its aftermath can hardly be coincidental.
However, few have noted that we are not actually cutting off diplomatic relations with the Vatican and that we already have a perfectly serviceable embassy in Rome.
It is not unusual for our embassies to be accredited to a number of neighbouring states and a cost-benefit analysis of all state services is unavoidable in these straitened times.
With so many Rome-appointed bishops in our midst, it is hardly likely that the Government will be unaware of Vatican thinking or vice versa. The confusion of church-state relations with inter-state diplomatic relations has not been helpful in the past and it is perhaps healthy that our relations with the Catholic Church should become more similar to that between the State and other religions.
The closure of our embassy with the Vatican is merely a reflection of the constitutional, political, economic and diplomatic realities of our time.
Frank Schnittger
Blessington, Co Wicklow
Irish Independent
