Labour Party members in Ireland revolting against "anti-Church" stance of Gilmore and against "secularisation by stealth agenda"?

 Various reports show that the Vatican Embassy issue has not gone away.
The belated attempt by Labour leader Eamon Gilmore ( the one who closed Embassy to Holy See) to impose some order on his "fractious" and "despairing" TDs and senators at a special meeting to be held next Thursday is already beginning to fall apart.

Labour  members in Ireland’s Parliament are growing more alarmed at what they describe as the party's "secularisation by stealth agenda" in the wake of a decision to close the Irish embassy to the Vatican.

They are also vowing to fiercely resist the leadership's "centralising tendencies".

The Tanaiste's move comes against a background of increasing discontent over Mr Gilmore's stance on the closure of the Vatican embassy, which some Labour figures believe is "going to become as messy and divisive as the rod licence dispute was in the Eighties".

In what was described by his own TDs as a "pre-emptive strike" the party chief whip issued a statement last Friday claiming that Labour's back-benchers "firmly backed" Mr Gilmore on the issue.

This stance, however, came as news to a large number of Labour TDs. One source told the Sunday Independent, on condition of anonymity, that the statement was "not true".

One source said that in Labour, "the issue has now gone past the closure of the Vatican. Instead there is an impression that the Labour Party is anti-church''.

This belief is already having serious repercussions on the ground, where last week, at a series of church gate collections for the party, Labour TDs were "getting it in the neck not only from churchgoers but also non-churchgoers who believe the moves are vindictive and unfair".

The position of the leadership has also sparked a severe deterioration of relations between the coalition parties in the wake of virtual unanimity in Fine Gael over re-opening the Vatican embassy. At a meeting recently more than 30 TDs called for a reversal of the decision.

Outside of his own performance, the Labour leader will also have to deal with the scathing views of a growing number of TDs about the capabilities of the Labour wing of the Cabinet.

One source noted: "The feeling is that key ministers are being self-indulgent, detached, aloof and inaccessible and Fine Gael is walking all over them."

A growing number of TDs also now believe that: "There has been a takeover by stealth by Gilmore, Ivana Bacik, Ruairi Quinn and Aodhan O'Riordan. They are the ones consistently grabbing the headlines -- the ordinary card-carrying member is horrified."

The under-pressure Labour leader has begun a series of meetings with the party grassroots but, speaking of a recent meeting, one high-profile figure said scathingly, "he simply didn't connect with them".

A large number of younger Labour TDs were also appalled by the "McCarthyite" nature of the language being used about Catholicism.

Speaking privately, one Labour representative contrasted the spectacle of "a Tanaiste slamming the persecution of Coptic Christians in Iran" while elements of his own party appeared to be advocating some sort of "final solution" in Ireland.

Among those who were believed to be particularly infuriated were Colm Keaveney, Ann Phelan, Robert Dowds and Senator John Kelly.

MANY people have expressed surprise at how the issue of the Vatican embassy has remained so high on the agenda in recent weeks. In particular people are surprised at the reaction among many Fine Gael TDs who seem to want the embassy re-opened.

Of course, many people view the issue through a particular prism or see it as an isolated decision. That is not where the TD’s who have raised it are coming from. Looked at in simple economic terms the true financial value of any embassy could be called into question, never mind one to a tiny state with no real economy. Therefore closing it should not be any issue at all and entirely at the discretion of the government. But symbolism has a lot more to do with it than that.

Let’s forget all the arguments as to why an embassy anywhere is necessary as in reality we can certainly survive without one to the Vatican. The problem is that it has become something of a pressure point in what is a war of messaging for the government. A large proportion of the Irish population are no longer practising Catholics, they resent much of the catholic influence on the state. This is gradually being rolled back. The vast majority of the population including most Catholics find the behaviour of the Church in how it dealt with paedophiles and how it ran institutions reprehensible.

The Catholic Church in Ireland  has done much that is good, indeed great, especially in relation to education, but also much that it should be ashamed of. This feeling is so great that there seem to be very few people who would stand up publicly and try to defend the church or Catholicism in Ireland. However, just because that may be the case it would be wrong to assume that Catholicism has died. Mass attendances may be a fraction of what the used to be, but they are still a sizeable number of people with a credible voting record who are entitled to their opinions whether one agrees with them or not.

There is a tendency to suggest that these are all just ‘old rural folk’ as if such people don’t deserve to express their opinion. Needless to say, not all Catholics fit that description either. It would be a safe bet to suggest that most Catholics are not overly put out by the closure of the Vatican embassy as a singular issue. However TD’s are very much aware of a different pressure. When the government came to power it did so at a time when the Catholic Church was at its lowest ebb and with good reason. There were rumours, however, that there were those out there that wanted the religion destroyed, wanted it removed from society and found it a bit laughable that some people still practised. In general these, rumours were exaggerated to spread a certain fear but what has happened since has caused many Catholics to pause for thought.

First, Enda Kenny made that speech condemning the Vatican. Most Catholics supported him on it but after the initial euphoria a question mark was raised as to why the speech focussed on the Vatican and not the Irish church authorities? It began to occur to many that the reason was because to have hit the Irish church authorities would have also meant that the Taoiseach would have had to question the Irish state that fully participated and benefitted from church run institutions. This was a legal minefield and a can of worms that was considered best left unopened. Therefore, the speech avoided Irish criticism and made it a spat between two states, and one was being told to butt out of the other. All fairly justifiable.

It was unfortunate for the government that this period was followed by a number of necessary but badly timed debates. The first of these came in education where growing concerns were raised about the teaching of religion in schools. Those opposed to teaching religion would rightly say that this was long overdue. However, for Catholics it seemed like an effort was being made to further remove their religion and deny them much input on it. There remain many communities that are almost entirely catholic and where no parent dissents the idea of religion being thought and the parents quite like it that way as it saves them time and effort. You can agree or disagree with that position but the parents are still entitled to want to send their child to a school and receive a catholic education.

It was in these areas that they began to feel a push was on to force a decision upon them to suit other areas where problems clearly existed. Unfortunately the Minister in charge, Ruari Quinn was not a Catholic and was also a Labour minister. For those that fear the new secularisation of society it always appeared that the Labour Party was more in favour of this than other parties. The necessity of the debate is ignored when people start to become suspicious. There was a clear lack of anyone speaking up to defend the position, as no one who was not an ultra-Catholic wanted to take the flak of being accused of being a silly religionist and a supporter of paedophiles.

There is now almost continual talk of why the Catholic influence should be removed from various facets of life. There is nothing wrong with that but people should not be surprised or dismissive to find that the pace of the discussion is alarming to others. All this was combined with a series of other decisions on hospitals, barracks, septic tanks, rural transport etc that seemed to suggest that the government did not see a viable future for rural Ireland and while unrelated to the religious debate it certainly fed it.

The decision on the Vatican embassy was just the latest blow. On its own no big deal. But it seemed to be part of a pattern; a pattern set in many peoples minds by the Labour party. It was a pattern that suggested that a new Ireland would have no place for the views of these people. That may be unfair but that it how it was perceived. The Catholic Church would be firmly put in its place and then eroded from society. The time was right and the opportunity was being taken. People who originally thought that the rumour about people not caring about rural Ireland and wanting the church destroyed was only a rumour, not started to actively fear it was true.

Fine Gael has felt the force of this. TD’s know their constituents and regular voters. These TD’s have picked up on these fears and are seeking to assure the voters that this government does not have any agenda that is anti-catholic, that it is not all cooked up by a cabal within Labour. They are not trying to undermine Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore; they are in fact, trying to stop what they see as a damaging perception that is gaining momentum. The recent portrayal of Eamon Gilmore as being the man most opposed to re-opening the Vatican embassy has not helped this cause.

Have no doubt that the government will not lose big chunks of its vote over this alone, and it will not cause the majority of voters much thought. However, when broken down to constituency level, some TDs realise that while they have not taken a hit they have opened up their tight defences and are now vulnerable to a possible attack.

Comment: I hope the Vatican will pause and not make any more mistakes in respect of Ireland. Historically the Holy See, while it was first to establish an embassy in the newly emerging Ireland,  had usually got matters wrong in its relationship in earlier times.  As is said in Ireland about Leo XIII  "great in his encyclicals but no friend of Ireland". It seems to me that the Vatican may make another mistake vis a vis the Border in Ireland if reports emanating from Rome are to be believed.  If the Vatican does that it will lose a lot of the goodwill of faithful people.  Let us hope that an Irish Archbishop is not moved to do what a previous archbishop of Dublin - Cardinal Cullen - is alleged to have done i.e. threaten to taken his ring off his finger and put it on the Pope's nose and say that if the Pope did not stop interfering in Irish affairs  he would lead him though the streets of Rome like an Irish farmer would lead a bull to market.   I do not think he was talking about a Papal Bull! 

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