US president Joe Biden and Ireland's ambassador to the US, Dan Mulhall. Photo: Irish Examiner Ireland’s ambassador to the US has opened up about the role of Catholic education in his formation and his gratitude to the “great men” who taught him in the Christian Brothers’ school in Waterford.
Ambassador Dan Mulhall was speaking at the Milwaukee Irish Festival addressing the question of the role of the Church in Irish society.
Mr Mulhall began by stating that he does not possess a thoroughly cynical view of the role of the Church’s influence in Ireland, “I’m not one of these people that has a negative perspective on the Irish Catholic Church, because I owe my present position to the fact I was educated very well by Christian Brothers in Waterford back in the 1950s and sixties.
“Of course, it’s also true that some of the great men that taught me were let down by other members of their order because there were obviously some pretty bad pennies who did some terrible things and really brought the order into disrepute”, he added.
He said that Church failings have undermined the Church’s reputation on the island, thus producing subsequent generations of Irish people whom are “still probably religious but the sort of devotion that my parents had, my parents’ generation had, doesn’t seem to really be apparent in today’s Ireland”. He said the challenge for the Church lies in trying to “win back the confidence of the people”.