IRELAND
Irish Times
PADDY AGNEW in Rome
AHEAD OF a brief meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo this morning, Taoiseach Enda Kenny was yesterday unrepentant about his criticism last year of the Holy See’s response to the clerical sex abuse crisis in Ireland.
Complaining in the Dáil about the “dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day”, Mr Kenny suggested that the Holy See had responded to the sex abuse crisis with the “gimlet eye of a canon lawyer”.
Asked by The Irish Times if he would feel “uncomfortable” when meeting the pope this morning for the first time since the July 2011 speech, the Taoiseach said that he was happy to meet him.
“I think that the matter that I raised in the Dáil in regard to the Catholic Church has been beneficial in the sense that it has brought about a new sense of reality. In my dealings with church authorities since then, there has been a realism and an understanding that the scars of the past have to be dealt with and dealt with fully and that we have to put in place foundations for the future which demonstrate the sense of values that we have for our country and for our peo
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