FATHER Austin Flannery was in phlegmatic mood despite being mauled in print by a 28 year old priest in Rome.
A has-been, trumpeted Father David O'Hanlon, writing on these pages a week ago. So just how did the avuncular, long time church liberal feel about being held responsible (with others) for, as Father O'Hanlon put it, "their complacent, characterless and crumbling compromise between church and modern Ireland".
"You have to have a sense of humour about these things," reflected Father Austin. But he took seriously Father David's assault on the President in a letter to the editor and, further, in last week's article (a theme he defended during a midweek radio chat with Gay Byrne). It was "ill informed and very offensive, said Father Flannery. Father O'Hanlon, he felt, "doesn't know what he is talking about".
Bishop John Kirby expressed "shock" at Father O'Hanlon, while praising the President's unstinting support for Trocaire. And today in the letters' page, a second bishop, Dr Willie Walsh in Ennis, writes that dismay and outrage is the reaction he has encountered among colleagues apropos Father O'Hanlon.
The President herself remains firmly mum. A spokeswoman would say only that it was Mrs Robinson's view that Father O'Hanlon was entitled to his view. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman was every bit as unsatisfactory. The Department and Vatican officials handled all protocol for the visit. It is not Department policy "to comment on visits of this kind".
In response to Father O'Hanlon's points of disorder last week, however, sources indicate that the visit to the Vatican was at the President's request. Protocol directs that a state visit to the Vatican is at its invitation, and one has not been extended to Mrs Robinson to date.
She had been invited to Rome to address the World Food Programme. Hearing this, the Italian government decided to make her visit an official one, and she asked to see the Pope. Papal honours are never extended on other than state visits. As to the President's chaplain being missing, it was pointed out that Father Enda McDonagh never accompanies Mrs Robinson on any visit. Chaplains just do not do that, whoever the President. Nor does protocol dictate other wise for visits to the Vatican. Nor did Mrs Robinson slight the Irish College in Rome on this. She visited the college, and met its rector on three occasions while in Rome.
As for that dress, it was not kelly green, it was "very dark green", very sober green", "very sombre green". She was visiting the Pope in what was effectively his office, as opposed to a place of worship, where she dressed as a head of state, representing all her people, to meet another head of state. The mimosa had been given her as a gift the previous day. It was being worn widely by women all over Rome, and she had placed it in that brooch as it has always been special to her, since it comes from Belfast.
As for Father O'Hanlon's description of "swaggering disrespect, forced mockery, and an almost adolescent sneer", by the President's party at the Vatican, it was totally untrue. Ugliness in the eye of the beholder, said one source.
The visit to the tomb of Peter is part of state visit ceremonies to the Vatican, not a visit such as Mrs Robinson had.
"Ask any man or woman in the street," was the suggestion. As for Father O'Hanlon's description of Mrs Robinson's announcement that she was not standing for a second term, within days of the visit, as "sudden, improvised" and "cynically calculated to stem unforeseen criticism at home" of her "behaviour" at the Vatican ... well, holy, holy God.
Sad," said another source.
The Bishop of Meath, Dr Michael Smith, really didn't wish to comment on the controversy. He did say, however, that Father O'Hanlon was "a priest in good standing with the diocese". The views he expressed though had been made "in a personal capacity".
