It is a good thing for Ireland to have a resident ambassador to the Vatican, according to the new Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown.
“We believe it is important for Ireland to have a presence in Rome so that the voice of Ireland can be expressed directly and consistently and constantly to the Holy See. That is why you have a resident ambassador,” he said. “It is a good thing for Ireland.”
However, the Holy See absolutely recognises the economic stress of the times, he added.
Denying there is an “icy” relationship between the Fine Gael government and the Vatican, Archbishop Brown said that the welcome he had been given by the government had been “exceptionally warm and kind at every instance.”
The new Nuncio, who arrived in Ireland a month ago, was not drawn from the diplomatic corps of the Vatican.
Instead the American prelate worked since 1994 with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, (the branch of the Vatican that oversees church doctrine) where he worked alongside the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger until he became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
While he has a close relationship with the pontiff and could ring him up, “if I needed to,” he said he tried to be “judicious” in his contact with the Pope.
This is his first appointment as Nuncio and he readily describes himself as a novice.
“I’m trying to learn as much as I can and as quickly as I can,” he told ciNews.
Currently Ireland has four vacant Sees, and a number of other bishops are due to retire having reached 75.
Questioned about the appointment of new bishops, Archbishop Brown admitted that having a change in Nuncio was causing a further delay in the appointments but stressed that they were doing everything they could to resolve the situation, “as soon as possible, because a diocese needs a bishop , the Catholic faithful gathered around a bishop.”
“We’re doing everything we can to find good and holy bishops for all the vacant dioceses,” he said.
Archbishop Brown was in Carlow for the Kildare and Leighlin Diocesan Eucharistic Congress.
He surprised the organisers when he arrived by car alone, having successfully driven from Dublin to Carlow, with just one minor hitch navigating a one way street in Carlow.
Asked about the huge crises in faith over the abuse scandals, Archbishop Brown said that the Church has to continue to preach the Gospel of Christ, “to give the whole, integral message to the people. If we preach the Gospel [...] I know people will respond."
He went on, “The Church in the end offers eternal life. Our kingdom is not of this world and we offer that which comes from Jesus, the life of the world to come, the life of grace, and that gives a joy the world cannot give. I think when the Gospel of Christ is preached, people respond infallibly and in every case.”