Have the councillors got sunstroke, or has God returned to county hall?

Pat Brosnan

Maybe it was the unprecedented hot spell and the effects of having to swelter through a council meeting that brought it on, but the late Pope John Paul II made it onto the agenda of the council meeting this week.

It will be recalled that John Paul's former private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, had ignored the late pontiff's dying wish that his private papers be destroyed and, more importantly, upset some members of Cork county council in the process.

The archbishop maintained that the documents were a "great treasure" that should be kept for posterity.

Many would agree with that sentiment but would feel somewhat iffy about it, as the man himself wanted them destroyed, for whatever reason.

The late pope said in his last will and testament, which was published a few days after his death, that he had asked the archbishop, a fellow Pole, to oversee the burning of his personal documents and notes.

He was regarded as the late Pope's most trusted aide, and this must have John Paul turning in his grave underneath St Peter's Basilica.

But the archbishop disclosed that he had so far refused to comply. "Nothing has been burned," he told Polish state radio. "Nothing is fit for burning. Everything should be preserved and kept for history, for the future generations every single sentence. These are great riches that should gradually be made available to the public."

This disclosure has triggered speculation about the contents of the documents, which could include the late pope's reflections on international events and personalities, as well as spiritual insights.

In other words, Pope John Paul II's written word, if not himself, could come back to haunt some of the red hats in the Eternal City.

Admittedly, many were surprised by Archbishop Dziwisz's apparent act of disobedience to the late pope's, and future saint's, wishes, especially as he had worked alongside John Paul II for nearly 40 years. None was more outraged at the archbishop than a few members of Cork county council who, bizarrely, did the rest of the Catholic world a major service by having the question raised, and resolved.

It might seem a little odd that a body over which a crucifix had hung in its chamber for decades, but was dumped during renovations (although not by the councillors), and was later resurrected from a skip, should concern itself about the politics of Rome.

But Cork County Council is nothing if not catholic in what it will concern itself with, in the broadest sense, of course.

In this case, it was the letters of the late pope which caused the agitation and the fact that the Vatican over-ruled his last wishes that they be destroyed. What that has to do with Cork county council, God only knows. God also knows that there are more pressing matters affecting the county that the councillors would be better employed discussing but, possibly, he also knows it's the silly season down here.

In any case, Fine Gael's Cllr Gerry Kelly had called for a letter to be written to Irish bishops informing them of the anger caused by the Vatican ignoring John Paul's wishes in the matter of his private papers.

Now I can imagine all of Cllr Kelly's constituents getting hot and bothered under their scapulars and telling him to forget about potholes and water supplies not to mention sheep-dipping for the moment, and get the Vatican sorted.

He also expressed the belief that his fellow councillors would totally support him in the call.

In that he was misguided because the rest of them did not religiously follow his paper trail.

But where Cork County Council is unique among other local authorities, as far as I know, is that it numbers among its elected members an acknowledged expert in canon law.

WHILE, no doubt, Cllr Noel Collins would disavow this appellation, his colleagues turned to him for inspiration in their hour of need, and he did not desert them.

He pontificated thus:

"The sentiments from Gerry Kelly are very laudable. But this (Pope John Paul II's) request wasn't made in the confessional. Burning them could be looked on by the bishops as doing a great disservice to his soul. There's nothing in canon law to say they can't do this," declaimed Cllr Collins, giving his and, by implication the council's imprimatur to the Holy See from his seat of learning on the Carrigrohane Road in Cork, or the Straight Road as it's more commonly referred to.

There was no way that anybody else in the chamber was going to disagree with the erudite interpretation of Cllr Collins in the matter of a theological conundrum that had so consumed the constituents in the Blarney electoral area. In the end, it was decided that the two bishops in Cork would be written to, informing them of some of the councillors' disapproval at Rome's conduct in this matter.

Cllr Gerry Kelly, and presumably the council, can now return to the more earthly matters they were elected to deal with.

And Rome can rest easy.

Possibly to do with the hot weather as well, especially if he ventured out without a hat, was Bertie Ahern's lauding to the younger generation of Charlie Haughey.

Our former, disgraced Taoiseach was praised by the current incumbent in an appraisal of the recent RTÉ series on Lord Kinsealy.

Admittedly, it was a one-sided opinion on the series about 'Charvet' Haughey, so named for the item of apparel he was adorned in while lecturing the rest of us to tighten our belts.

Bertie Ahern's version of how history should remember his predecessor had all the hallmarks of the Fairytales of Ireland, and would be suitably included in it.

Not a fairytale, however, is the fact that our TDs are to get a crèche in Kildare Street for those whose kids are too young to act as constituency secretaries for their mammies or daddies.

Because it will be practically in the Dáil, it will have the advantage that the kids will be almost serving their apprenticeship for a position which many of their parents believe should be theirs by right under our inheritance laws.

One thing is for sure: that crèche will be up and running long before the 4,000 new childcare places in community-based projects recently promised by Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

If they're anything like the 2,000 phantom gardaí he promised before the last election, those TDs' children will have long graduated not just from the crèche, but from college, before any community sees one of our Justice Minister's baby-minders.