President Hillery in the Vatican State Papers
Echoes of the past from the archives
Over April 19-23, 1989 President Hillery and his wife made a state visit to the Holy See. This went off very well, as is the usual case with state visits. But in the papers dealing with the invitation, an official in the department of Foreign affairs notes that there was a difficulty in the background.
Pope John Paul II had made an historic visit to Ireland in October 1979, an event which stirred the nation but perhaps marked not the beginning of accord but an end to it. Three was much discussion about the possibility of another papal visit. However, it seems that at a diplomatic level there was a problem.
Though the previous visit had been seen as a ‘pastoral visit’, it was made to mark the centenary of the apparition at Knock, the Pope having a particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was seen by the Vatican as a state visit. There could not be, in their eyes, another papal visit, however it was designated, until the President of Ireland made a reciprocal state visit.
It was not until August 2018 that Pope Francis made a much lower key visit to a greatly different and even indifferent Ireland”
This was what lay behind the event in October 1989. But no further Papal visit from John Paul II resulted. Though he travelled widely, his later years were dogged by clearly declining health, that caused increased anxiety to those who saw him.
It was not until August 2018 that Pope Francis made a much lower key visit to a greatly different and even indifferent Ireland. In the seven years of his Pontificate Pope Benedict never visited Ireland, by then increasingly troubled by Church scandals.
The idea that a pastoral visit to a country with a Catholic head of state was different was marked by the presentation to Hillery by the Pope of a decoration traditionally awarded only to Catholic heads of state. A confusion between the two ideas may still linger in the minds of the diplomats in the Vatican.
But the response to the visit of the admired Pope Francis suggests that some clarification in the mind of the Vatican authorities of the actually status of a visit – is it a ‘state visit’ or a ‘pastoral visit’ will be needed in future.
NA file 2019 /30/ 0533.