When Ireland's prime minister, Enda Kenny, dared to attack the Vatican's
role in the alleged cover-up of child abuse, he unleashed an
unprecedented row between the Catholic church and the Irish state, with
Rome recalling its ambassador to Dublin, and one priest even comparing
Kenny to Adolf Hitler.
But Kenny's speech has also won
him thousands of letters of support, and revealed how – after centuries
in which the Catholic church was a dominant force in Irish society – the
influence of Rome has dwindled, leaving a country that is now more
tolerant and secular than at any time in its history.
"It was a
monumental moment. Here was a man who is a practising Catholic and yet
he was prepared to say these things," said Ciara McGrattan, the deputy
editor of Gay Community News.
Even the country's leading Catholic
newspaper praised Kenny's speech, in which he accused the church's
hierarchy of downplaying the rape and torture of children to uphold the
power of the church.
In an editorial, the Irish Catholic said Kenny had
"captured the anger of a generation" and described the church hierarchy
as "arrogant and authoritarian".
Not everyone agreed: one Irish
priest wrote that the last European leader to issue such a blistering
attack on a pope "was the ruthless German dictator Adolf Hitler".
Father
Thomas Daly was forced to apologise for the comment, made in a pamphlet
entitled "Heil Herr Kenny".
Vatican officials feel that the
church has been unfairly attacked, possibly for political reasons.
One
high-ranking official who spoke on condition of anonymity noted Ireland
was caught up in the euro crisis and speculated that Kenny might have
been seeking to distract public opinion.
Others stressed that the
Holy See's response, which has been promised by the end of August, would
seek to heal the breach.
But the signs this week were that it would
also include a vigorous defence of the Vatican's
position.
In
Dublin gay and secular activists said Kenny's comments reflected a new
Ireland, where attitudes to the church and its influence on daily life
have quietly undergone a dramatic shift over the past decade.
Until
1993 homosexuality was still illegal but, according to McGrattan,
conditions for gay people have dramatically improved over the past 10
years.
"There has been a move across the board even in schools –
of which more than 90% are controlled by the Catholic church – where
talk about being gay is no longer banned or simply ignored. Gay youth
groups are even going into schools to talk about homophobic bullying.
This is real progress."
That tolerance is measured in a series of
current opinion polls that show the openly gay Irish senator David
Norris as the people's favourite to become Ireland's next president when
the country elects a new head of state in the autumn.
Striding
through central Dublin with a rainbow-striped gay rights banner across
his shoulder, Richy Guidon Smith said he admired Kenny's stance –
especially as the Irish premier's Fine Gael party was once among the
staunchest defenders of the Catholic Church's temporal power.
"What
he said about the Vatican was unusual language for any prime minister –
but especially an Irish prime minister and one who is a Catholic
himself. It may have been surprising but he was representing the country
when he said it," he said.
"We stand very much behind him on that as we
have a lot of anger towards the Vatican over the sort of horrible
things they have said about gay people."
Mick Nugent, satirist and
secular campaigner, said atheists were among the fastest growing
minorities in Ireland.
In 1981, just 39,000 people ticked the "no religion"
box on the national census; in the last survey, carried out in 2006,
that figure had risen to 180,000, and Nugent estimated the figure could
now be as high as a quarter of a million.
"In the early 1980s you
needed to be married and have a doctor's prescription to buy a condom,"
he said.
"In the early 1990s divorce was still illegal. Today we finally
have a taoiseach standing up to the Vatican but [you still] have to
swear a religious oath to become president or a judge. The Catholic
church still controls around 90% of primary schools. And we still have a
blasphemy law passed by the last government."
"The difference between 20 years ago and today is that most people now recognise that these things have to change."