Standing up to keep our Vatican embassy

Using economics to justify closing our embassy to the Holy See prompted one Dublin mother to say stop, writes Mary E Fitzgibbon

EIGHT months into office, a Government decision was taken to close our embassy to the Holy See. Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said “while the embassy to the Holy See was one of Ireland’s oldest missions, it yielded no economic return.”

For the vast majority of the faithful in Ireland this was a historic turning point. Many decried use of the economic argument when issues such as human rights, the promotion of social justice and the elimination of poverty which characterise the work of the Holy See are not fiscally quantifiable.