IRELAND
Irish Times
Patsy McGarry
It has been said of some senior civil servants, in Ireland as elsewhere, that they believe governments are elected to carry out their will. Such Sir Humphrey-like attitudes are not confined to civil societies.
They also exist at the Vatican where, inevitably, similar senior bureaucrats go one better. They believe the pope has been chosen by God to carry out their will.
Should a pope resist, though they prefer to think him misled, they will show him the way. He may propose, but they dispose. Or nothing happens.
And trying to get them to admit any of this would be every bit as futile as expecting the Sisters of Bons Secours to comment on confirmation that the remains of many hundreds of infants are to be found in Tuam at the Mother and Baby Home they once managed there.
A perfect example of Rome’s bureaucrats at work is how the Vatican’s commission for the protection of minors has been treated by some in the Curia, particularly at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
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