ROME
Vatican Insider
Members of the Ireland Stand Up movement, visiting Rome for St Patrick’s Day, re-issued their call to the Irish Government to re-open its Embassy to the Holy See and invite Pope Benedict XVI to visit the country
Gerard O’Connell
Rome
Standing in front of the former Irish Embassy to the Holy See in Rome on March 17, the feast of Saint Patrick, sixteen members of the dynamic Ireland Stand Up movement re-issued their call to the Dublin Government to re-open its embassy to the Holy See, reinstate a resident ambassador, and invite Pope Benedict to visit the country.
Led by Mary Fitzgibbon, these Irish lay men, women and children stood in front of the Villa Spada on the Janiculum Hill on the afternoon of Saint Patrick’s Day, to keep up the pressure on the Government. Ireland has had diplomatic relations with the Holy See since 1929 and the Villa Spada has been the seat of its embassy for the past 65 years until the Dublin Government decided to close it on 3 November 2011 for economic reasons, though many believe the rationale was more political than economic.
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