Courtney McGrailDear Editor, The confirmation from the Taoiseach that Pope Francis looks set to visit Ireland in 2018 for the World Meeting of Families is immensely heartening, even if it’s difficult to imagine what Pope Francis thought of his meeting with Mr Kenny.
Five years ago the Taoiseach made a brief global name for himself through a Dáil speech claiming that the Cloyne Report had revealed a culture of narcissism in the Vatican, when it had hardly mentioned Rome in any sense, and a year later his boorish fiddling with his mobile phone when being addressed by Pope Benedict inspired much tutting and shaking of heads.
In the meantime, of course, Mr Kenny’s first government had announced the closure of Ireland’s embassy to the Holy See, an opportunistic act of governmental spite spuriously painted as a cost-cutting measure, but things have clearly changed since then, notably with the embassy having been reinstated.
That said, it would be very strange should it turn out to be true that the Taoiseach took advantage of his meeting with the Pope to raise the cases of Fr Tony Flannery and other vocal priests often described as ‘silenced’ by Rome.
While Fr Tony’s brother Frank Flannery is of course an old friend of Mr Kenny, it would surely have been parish pump politics of the most egregious kind for the Taoiseach to have raised such an internal Church matter in the Vatican. It is, I think, unlikely, that the Holy Father would have brought up the expulsion of Lucinda Creighton from Fine Gael.
Still, all this is speculation, and the odds are low that Mr Kenny will still be in office as Taoiseach to welcome Pope Francis to Ireland in 2018. Informed comment suggests the trip will be a short one, but though brief it could be a chance for some real healing and grace in our Church and land. I, for one, will look forward to it!
Yours etc.,
Mairead Byrne
Tallaght, Dublin 24.