Reconsider Vatican closure

MR EAMON GILMORE’S justification for closing our embassy to the Vatican — i.e. that it yields no economic return — reminds me of Stalin’s famous rhetorical question at the Yalta Conference: “How many divisions has the Pope?”

The Pope’s state was unarmed and powerless. Whereas Stalin could, and did, liquidate millions of people. He established some of the terrible gulags of the 20th century. For many years, the power of his terrible dictatorship seemed invincible.

Yet one day, Mikhail Gorbachev would tell the Turin-based Italian newspaper La Stampa that Pope John Paul and the Vatican had played a key role in the demise of the USSR and in the extinction of his own office as president and Stalin’s successor.

I believe that what Vatican diplomacy helped to achieve in Europe was simply priceless. Although I would have known people who saw human beings only as economic units and who were none too pleased to see Poland and other countries freed of the Soviet yoke.

We are a global human family and most of that family is living in great pools of poverty and hopelessness.

For all its faults the Catholic Church is a force for good in trying to change this horrific situation.

The growing diplomatic network connected to the Holy See is an important part of this effort, and Ireland should try to stay connected. We cannot conduct nuanced diplomatic conversations at long distance.

The decision to close our Embassy reveals a narrow-minded streak in those who claim to be modern.

I urge them to reconsider their position. And to realise that the new Ireland cannot progress by trampling on what it sees as the old.

Liam Ó hAodha

SVD

OberáMisiones

Argentina