Church-State relations:The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, cardinal William Conway, expressed his displeasure to a senior diplomat in 1971 at the influence on public policy of Dublin "liberals", particularly Garret FitzGerald, according to a confidential note which has just become available in the National Archives.
The cardinal also objected to the way the Irish government had voted for the admission of communist China to the United Nations, against the wishes of the United States and the Vatican.
The cardinal expressed these views at a meeting with the Irish ambassador to the United Nations, Con Cremin, in New York in November, 1971. Cremin then wrote privately to Hugh McCann, secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, detailing the conversation.
Cremin recorded the cardinal as saying that there was no communication between the Catholic Church and the State in the Republic.
"In fact the position now is that it is sufficient to hint at Church support for a given policy to have it killed. Here the Cardinal spoke of what he called the 'liberals' in Dublin and mentioned specifically Mr Garret FitzGerald. He instanced as a case in point the trouble about community schools where he said the Church proposals would not in effect dilute the authority the Church already enjoys. He argued that the best thing to do would be to amalgamate the convent and boys' schools in every locality; he spoke critically of the vocational schools."
Cardinal Conway revealed that he had met British prime minister Edward Heath "quietly more than once" and had met the Labour leader, Harold Wilson, for the first time the previous week. The cardinal also raised the Irish government's attitude to the admission of communist China to the United Nations. John Mulcahy, whom Cremin later learned was a senior adviser to president Nixon, was with the cardinal.
Two months earlier the Irish government had resisted American pressure to vote for a draft resolution (the i.q. draft) that would have allowed two Chinas, (communist China and Taiwan) to sit at the UN. Following intense political manoeuvring the US eventually accepted a resolution that allowed for the admission of communist China and the expulsion of Taiwan.
"The cardinal wondered why we decided to vote against the 'i.q' draft on the China issue. Here, he said, was a case where we might have shown a little 'benevolentia' towards the United States."
Cardinal Conway said the American ambassador to Ireland had received many letters protesting against the government's position. "He was surprised that the government did not inform the [ Papal] Nuncio of how we were going to vote. The Nuncio had, he stated, urged us to vote for the 'i.q' and felt rather hurt." The cardinal then produced a Department of Foreign Affairs bulletin, containing the minister's speech on the issue, and complained that he had not received this from the Irish government but had obtained it by a roundabout route.
"He was, he said, very glad that, when he arrived in New York and was met by the press, he was not put a question on the China vote. He was, however, prepared for such a question. What he would have said was in substance that it seemed to him the issue was a very important one, and that he found it difficult to understand why the delegation did not think so and did not vote for the 'i.q' draft."
