POPE JOHN Paul II urged the Catholic bishops to put pressure on IRA
hunger strikers at the Maze Prison, Long Kesh, to abandon their fast
because it clashed with Christian principles, previously unseen papers
at the British National Archives in London reveal.
The papal
message during the first hunger strike at the Maze, in the winter of
1980, said this should be in addition to the pressure the bishops, led
by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, were putting on the British government.
The
text of the pope’s instruction was supplied to the British authorities
by the apostolic nuncio to the United Kingdom at the time, Archbishop
Bruno Heim, who asked them to keep it confidential.
The hunger
strike, led by IRA prisoner Brendan Hughes, began on October 27th and
was called off on December 18th without achieving its aim that
republican inmates be allowed wear their own clothing, among other
concessions.
The newly released papers report that Archbishop Heim
told British officials the pope’s message to the bishops “gave a
significant steer to them to do what they could to prevent the
continuation of the hunger-strike”.
British officials believed the
message “had obviously been somewhat unwelcome” to the bishops, “to
judge from the lack of any announcement from Archbishop O’Fiaich or any
others, or the release of the text”.
But the message was “clear
enough: the Irish hierarchy should not address themselves merely to the
British authorities (as they have up to now) but also to the prisoners
themselves (which they have hitherto failed to do)”.
More
importantly, the pope’s statement rejected any religious sanction for
the strike.
Archbishop Heim stressed this was a significant step for the
Vatican.
The pope said: “The Bishops are urged not only to insist
with the British Authorities but also to do everything possible in
order to persuade prisoners to adopt a more human attitude, and I
repeat, one more in keeping with Christian principles.”
Former
Sinn Féin director of publicity Danny Morrison, who was in constant
contact with the Maze prisoners at the time, said last night: “This
comes as no surprise: Bishop Cahal Daly, a well-known anti-republican
prelate, was chief adviser to the Vatican on the North, and his
fingerprints are all over this perverse advice.”
After a visit to
the Maze in August 1978, Dr Ó Fiaich compared the condition of the
prisoners on the “dirty protest” with that of “homeless people living in
sewer pipes in the slums of Calcutta”
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