IRELAND SHOULD GET RID OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE HOLY SEE

Ireland had the wisdom at one point to close down the Vatican embassy.  Here is what I wrote at that time.

We are told that Ireland has had diplomatic relations with the Holy See for 1500 years from the time of Patrick who was sent by Pope Celestine and for tradition alone it should be restored.
 
This argument is a lie. The relations have only existed since the formation of the Irish Free State. The argument smacks of desperation. Celestine was not head of the Church but merely bishop of Rome. The Irish Church had to be brought under Roman control centuries after Patrick.
 
Those who use the argument cannot seriously think we will agree that spending lots of money on the running of an embassy to the Holy See is justified for the sake of a tradition!
 
The Holy See was among the first to recognise the Irish Free State. To slap it in the face by closing down the embassy is disgraceful in that context.
 
The officials of the Holy See at that time did this. They are dead. Maybe if Benedict XVI had been pope back then it would not have been recognised. And the Church had a mercenary reason to approve of the Irish Free State. The Irish Free State became a Catholic theocracy. Should we be grateful then for its approval?
 
And the recognition led to the Church having near-absolute power over Ireland. Why then should we be grateful for its recognition of the Free State?
 
The Church works for the rights of children,
 
Because of Catholic doctrine about the holiness of priests and their role as representatives of Jesus, the priests enjoyed a huge level of unquestioned access to children. The faith itself created extensive opportunities for sexual abuse. It will still for many families. It is unhealthy how the doctrines about the priest lead to the glorification of the priest.
 
The age of consent in the Holy See is 12.
 
We are told that a certain percentage of priests are or were abusers. That only refers to the priests that got caught out. The real percentage is bigger. We would be horrified at the true scale of the sexual abuse. It tends to be the priestly paedophiles who got caught out because they had an irresistible urge to abuse. What about the priests who rarely abused children and who did so merely because as celibates they were so anxious for sexual activity that anybody would do?

The child abused by a priest will experience a fear and a shame that is higher than that for children abused by anybody else.

It is the fear of going to Hell for telling.

The fear of turning people off the Church which can take them to Hell. For example, they might stop going to Mass and that is a sin that deserves everlasting torment.

It's the fear that one is guilty of being abused and going to Hell.

It's the fear that one will not be supported as most victims do not come forward.

It's the fear that very few allegations lead to the criminal being convicted.

The victim will often be warned against going to the police.

The priest is often moved away from the parish to keep the victim quiet.

The Church claims to have put child protection procedures in place. It has only done this because it has been forced to by the law and anger of the people. It still refuses to open its secret archives up to the police. Many dioceses are under suspicion of having burned and destroyed or hidden the files.

The Code of Canon Law, Canon 489 commands each diocese to keep secret archives.

"...a secret archive, or at least in the ordinary archive there is to be a safe or cabinet, which is securely closed and bolted and which cannot be removed. In this archive documents which are to be kept under secrecy are to be most carefully guarded." Documents are not permitted to be removed from it according to the law. Only the bishop has the key.

Canon 489 forbids any documents to be removed from the secret archive under any circumstances and only the Bishop is permitted to have the key to it.

The archives contain information about crimes against Canon Law including acts of clerical sexual abuse which break the law of celibacy.

The Church has no interest in releasing the documents. That shows how grudging it is in relation to helping victims and helping justice be done despite the lofty noble words condemning the abuse.
 
The Vincent Twomey argument goes, "Even on economic grounds it could be argued that there may well be a price to be paid in the long run: Irish businesses, especially subcontractors, who tender for business overseas tend to get the contracts, I gather, in the face of other competitors, all other things being equal. This is because of the debt so many of the countries of Africa and Asia feel toward Ireland as a Catholic country, whose priests, nuns, brothers and laity laid the foundation for their educational and health services – and who educated most of their present- day leaders. If our Government shows no respect to that patrimony, why should they?" Father Vincent Twomey is Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, Maynooth, and author of The End of Irish Catholicism?
 
Outlandish! No wonder even the most rabid Catholics didn't take it seriously.
 
The vast majority of the Africans will not even know of the closure of the embassy. Of the few that do know, they will not read it that way. Twomey thinks the Africans are immature enough to stop respecting the Church just because the Irish government doesn't. Shades of racism?
 
Diplomatic circles are growing in their awareness that religion has an important role to play in helping international security and peaceful coexistence.
 
Why don't we have an embassy to Islam or the Church of England? What is so damn special about the Holy See?
 
The Holy See needs to be recognised as a state so that the Pope can be independent of political pressure. It has happened in the past where Popes were the pawns of the secular rulers.

This argument is sheer desperation. Bishops have a certain degree of autonomy. Why not make each bishop's palace a state too? The pope can be independent in a secular world. The secular is been undermined where the state has an embassy set up for a religion!

Those who want the Pope to be independent care little for the independence of other leaders such as the Prophet of Mormonism or the Dalai Lama.

The popes funnily enough were never doctrinal pawns of the secular powers. They were political tools at times yes. The argument seems to be based on the failure to see that we are not in the tenth century anymore.
 
The Holy See is a global force and voice and a listening post for the nations that enter into diplomatic relations with it.
 
It has a voice yes but what use is that without credibility?
 
The Holy See makes a laughing stock of morality. It does its best to make sure that families and communities will pressure everybody to conform to the Church. It sticks its nose in the milestones of life, birth, growing up, marriage and death.
 
The Church recognises that an ectopic pregnancy will kill the mother. The Church forbids abortion as the sin of murder. So it forbids the removal of embryo in the fallopian tube as that would be abortion. Instead it allows removal of the tube itself with the inevitable death of the embryo. What a load of hypocrisy! The woman is mutilated in the name of religion! The implication is that you can kill indirectly and it's not murder then! The Catholic serial killer to be will gain much inspiration from that doctrine! Good way to manipulate the conscience!
 
The Church cannot openly advocate evil for even it will not get away with it.
 
It makes its evil look like mistakes. And it sets the stage so that its teaching will bring out the worst in the unsuspecting. That is why it teaches a morality without credibility.
  
One reply to all the arguments for the reopening of the Holy See embassy is that any alleged benefits can be won without having a Holy See embassy. Amnesty International has a better track record than the Holy See and your country does not need an Amnesty International Embassy.
 
Those Catholics who campaign for the reopening of the Embassy to the Holy See were determined to see to it that the Irish Government would have Pope Benedict XVI in Ireland for the Eucharistic Congress in 2012 thus making it a state visit that the tax payer will have to fork out for. It is unfair to take the taxes of people who oppose the Church to pay for that. Let the bishops invite him and pay the bill themselves. It is even argued that if the pope wants to come he must still be received as a head of state.
 
The USA established formal diplomatic relations in 1984. Ronald Reagan and the wily John Paul II were responsible. Russia in recent years appointed the resident envoy to the Holy See to an ambassador. Arab nations have been fooled into creating diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Dublin-Bishop-slams-decision-to-close-Irelands-Holy See-embassy-133522533.html#ixzz1dgsTUet4
 
Conclusion
 
The Holy See maintains formal diplomatic relations with 176 countries. Hopefully more nations will follow Ireland's lead and scrap their embassies to the Holy See.