In 1950, Ireland's then
minister for health, Dr Noel Browne, announced his intention to
radically reform the former Free State's ailing health service.
For the
first time, maternity care for all mothers and healthcare for all
children up to the age of 16 would be delivered free of charge.
Dr
Browne's proposals met with fierce resistance, particularly from the
Catholic Church, which characterised his scheme as "socialist" medicine
and an intrusion by the state into the sanctity of the family.
Led by the all-powerful then Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, the Mother
and Child scheme's opponents succeeded in destroying the bill, Dr
Browne's political career and even the coalition government of the time.
The
experience of Dr Browne was hardly unique: since the foundation of the
state almost 90 years ago, the Catholic hierarchy has exerted
unparalleled social and political control in Ireland.
Supplicant
Irish leaders bowed to the demands of Rome and local bishops. The
Church itself was accorded a "special position" in the 1937 Irish
constitution.
But Taoiseach Enda Kenny's recent watershed
comments have seriously eroded the once rock-solid relationship between
the Vatican and Ireland.
Speaking to the Irish Parliament last
week, the Irish premier attacked the "dysfunction, disconnection,
elitism, the narcissism" within the upper reaches of the Catholic
Church.
In Ireland, the reception to Mr Kenny's withering
remarks - which came after a devastating report criticising the Church's
handling of clerical sex abuse in the diocese of Cloyne, Co Cork, was
published - has been nothing short of sensational.
Victims of
clerical abuse have bravely spoken out on radio phone-ins, while many
ordinary practising Catholics have applauded the intervention as
statesmanlike.
Rather predictably, the reaction from the Vatican
has been more equivocal. After a period of silence from the hierarchy,
yesterday it was announced that Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, the Papal
Nuncio in Ireland, the Church's equivalent of an ambassador, was being
recalled from Dublin.
Does Archbishp Leanza's move signal a
further deterioration in Rome-Dublin relations or is it a necessary
first step in the Catholic Church finally dealing with the reality of
endemic clerical children sexual abuse in Ireland?
For now it's
difficult to tell. Yesterday a spokesman for Rome said that recalling
the envoy "denoted the seriousness of the situation", but then went on
to express "surprise" and "disappointment" at what he described as
"excessive reactions" to the Cloyne Report from the Irish government.
Mr
Kenny should not be unduly concerned by the Vatican's response. To the
surprise of many - particularly supporters of the Labour Party, his
coalition partners - the Irish prime minister, who hails from the rural
west of the country, has shown a willingness to confront the power of
the Catholic Church conspicuous by its absence in Bertie Ahern and Brian
Cowen, his immediate, and more metropolitan, predecessors.
That a leader of the traditionally conservative, pro-Catholic Fine Gael
party is calling the Vatican to account attests to how far the Church's
stock has fallen in Ireland.
Whether the Papal Nuncio returns to Dublin or not, one thing is certain: the Catholic Church's hold over Ireland has been well and truly broken.
Whether the Papal Nuncio returns to Dublin or not, one thing is certain: the Catholic Church's hold over Ireland has been well and truly broken.