Friday, January 14, 2011

Irish Ambassador on Pope’s speech to diplomats

“A very focused speech and one that was listened to with great care”, says Irish Ambassador to the Holy See, Noel Fahey in his reflections on Pope Benedict XVI’s address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See.

One day after Pope Benedict’s ‘state of the world’ address, Ambassador Fahey speaking to Emer McCarthy notes the papal overview focused very much on religious freedom and “issues of very direct concern to the Church”. 

“It has less of a broader kind of comment that the Holy Father sometimes makes in these kind of addresses”, he says. 

“This is not surprising in view of events in the Middle East and his World Day of Peace message on January 1. He was very direct, he made it clear that Catholics, Christians are entitled to exactly the same human rights in Muslim countries as the Muslim population”.

The Ambassador, who previously served as the Irish government representative to the United States of America also adds; “I find it very interesting, I thought, that he included both the issue of religious freedom where Catholics are directly persecuted in the same address as the treatment of religion in Europe and North America.”

SIC: VR/INT'L