VATICAN CITY
Irish Times
PADDY AGNEW
ANALYSIS: Rome wants to turn back the clock in Ireland but the church may have the wrong take on the abortion issue
The Holy See has not given up on Ireland. Despite two tempestuous decades of clerical sex abuse scandals, marked by the Irish Catholic Church’s unprecedented loss of credibility and moral authority, there are those in the Vatican who would still like to believe that Ireland can resume its once “proud” role of last bastion of traditional, conservative Catholicism in an increasingly atheist western Europe.
When Pope Benedict XVI last Monday spoke of his dismay that “in various countries, even those of Christian tradition, efforts are being made to introduce or expand legislation which decriminalises abortion”, it was hard not to see this as a specific reference to Ireland.
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