Catholic Ireland Closes Vatican Embassy

[JME2]

From Yahoo:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Catholic Ireland's stunning decision to close its embassy to the Vatican is a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige and may be followed by other countries which feel the missions are too expensive, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The closure brought relations between Ireland and the Vatican, once ironclad allies, to an all-time low following the row earlier this year over the Irish Church's handling of sex abuse cases and accusations that the Vatican had encouraged secrecy.

Ireland will now be the only major country of ancient Catholic tradition without an embassy to the Vatican.

"This is really bad for the Vatican because Ireland is the first big Catholic country to do this and because of what Catholicism means in Irish history," said a Vatican diplomatic source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He said Ireland informed the Vatican shortly before the announcement was made on Thursday night.

Dublin's foreign ministry said the embassy was being closed because "it yields no economic return" and that relations would be continued with an ambassador in Dublin.

The source said the Vatican was "extremely irritated" by the wording equating diplomatic missions with economic return, particularly as the Vatican sees its diplomatic role as promoting human values.

Diplomats said the Irish move might sway others to follow suit to save money because double diplomatic presences in Rome are expensive.

It was the latest crack in relations that had been seen as rock solid until a few years ago.

In July, the Vatican took the highly unusual step of recalling its ambassador to Ireland after Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Holy See of obstructing investigations into sexual abuse by priests.

The Irish parliament passed a motion deploring the Vatican's role in "undermining child protection frameworks" following publication of a damning report on the diocese of Cloyne.

The Cloyne report said Irish clerics concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, after the Vatican disparaged Irish child protection guidelines in a letter to Irish bishops.

While Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore denied the embassy closure was linked to the row over sexual abuse, Rome-based diplomats said they believed it probably played a major role.

"All things being equal, I really doubt the mission to the Vatican would have been on the list to get the axe without the fallout from the sex abuse scandal," one ambassador to the Vatican said, on condition of anonymity.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said he was profoundly disappointed by the decision and hoped the government would "revisit" it.

"This decision seems to show little regard for the important role played by the Holy See in international relations and of the historic ties between the Irish people and the Holy See over many centuries," Brady said in a statement.

The Vatican has been an internationally recognized sovereign city-state since 1929, when Italy compensated the Catholic Church for a vast area of central Italy known as the Papal States that was taken by the state at Italian unification in 1860.

It has diplomatic relations with 179 countries. About 80 have resident ambassadors and the rest are based in other European cities.

The Vatican guards its diplomatic independence fiercely and in the past has resisted moves by some countries to locate their envoys to the Holy See inside their embassies to Italy.

Dublin said it was closing its mission to the Vatican along with those in Iran and East Timor to help meet its fiscal goals under an EU-IMF bailout. The closures will save the government 1.25 million euros ($1.725 million) a year.

[Siege]

To be slightly pedantic, the Irish mission being closed is its embassy to the Holy See, not Vatican City. These are two separate international identities, and foreign ambassadors are always accredited to the Holy See, not the city-state.

Anyway, this is definitely a deliberate slight on the part of the Irish, though not something I expect to have much of an impact in terms of international relations: the Irish can just have their mission to Italy handle relations with the Holy See on the side. As I recall there's plenty nations that have their embassies set up that way.

[Koolaidkirby]

Out of curiosity, what do ambassadors to the Vatican actually DO? its not like they handle stranded tourists or important relations like other major ambassadors.

[Siege]

According to the website of the Embassy of Ireland to the Holy See it "is the official channel of communication between the Irish Government and the Holy See: such communications cover a range of international political, economic, developmental and human rights issues. The Embassy maintains contact with the many Irish Roman Catholic religious living and working in Rome. It has contact also with the representatives of other faith communities, Christian and non-Christian, that are in dialogue with the Holy See". Which in case of Ireland and other similarly Catholic countries is probably a whole bunch of people, so if you value that sort of thing it's probably worth keeping a few people in Rome especially if you take into account that the Curia in turn keeps in touch with Irish members of orders and congregations abroad, and that the Church could intercede on your behalf in various situations, etc... Then again those people could just as well be attached to the Embassy to the Italian Republic. It's not necessary per se for nations to have embassies to the Holy See, and in many cases I suspect it's mostly a prestige thing and/or historical habit to maintain such missions.

[Todeswind]

Out of curiosity, what do ambassadors to the Vatican actually DO? its not like they handle stranded tourists or important relations like other major ambassadors.

Mostly the same things any ambassador does, give the point of view of your nation and try to persuade politicians within a country to come around to your point of view. The diplomatic status associated with the position allows for the church to meet with them in an official political capacity between nations, rather than a "religious one", which gets around some of the church/state separation provisos.

[Lord Pounder]

This has been coming since the Cloyne Report was published and the Taoiseach Enda Kenny slaughtered the Vatican policies of covering up clerical abuse. They with drew the Papal Nuzio as a result. Rather than cower the Irish government has stood up to them. and have closed the Embassy, saving the tax payer over 400,000 Euro a year.

I for one am delighted to that Ireland has become such a progressive society. For years now people have been withdrawing from the churches, stopping their kids from attending services and only paying lip service to confirmations and communion.