IRELAND
Irish Times
Paddy Agnew in Rome
A week has passed since the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin went public over his concerns about the national seminary in Maynooth.
He told this newspaper on Monday of last week that he “wasn’t happy with Maynooth” because of the “atmosphere of strange goings-on”. He has since repeated his concerns about allegations of a homosexual subculture and of sexual activity in the college, inappropriate for an institution preparing men for a celibate priesthood.
So how is this playing out in Rome? First of all, there no official Holy See position. Informally, the Vatican line is that an issue like this is one for the local church, the Irish Bishops’ Conference and the Maynooth trustees to handle.
When it suits, the Holy See can closely follow the “subsidiarity” principle, namely that issues – controversial or otherwise – are best handled by the smallest, least centralised competent authority.
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