A well-known Capuchin friar took Taoiseach Enda Kenny to task in the wake of his July speech attacking the Vatican pointing out that the ''Church will outlive all human institutions, Fine Gael included''.Correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that Fr Eustace McSweeney OFM Cap., a former definitor general of the order, notes that ''it is crystal clear to me that the Vatican, and the Church at large, needs a root and branch pruning, renewal and updating''.
He went on to accuse Mr Kenny of using the speech to deflect from some of the Government's other difficulties.
''I regard some of the language you used as intemperate, hysterical and, I suspect, political -- an attempt to deflect from the Roscommon Hospital controversy,'' Fr McSweeney wrote.
He criticises Mr Kenny for failing ''to emphasise that between 1997 and 2011, a shift has taken place in Vatican policy from protecting priest-perpetrators to protecting victims.
''Though long overdue, this shift is a reality, it should be graciously acknowledged. Though the Vatican has, in the past, been unhelpful in the whole child protection policy, it is blatently wrong, in my judgement, to claim that the Vatican interfered with the law of the land in Ireland,'' he adds.
He said the Government's proposal that would undermine the seal of confession ''seems like a typical knee-jerk reaction, an exercise in optics.
''It would be more convincing and helpful, if, at last, the State got its own act together,'' Fr McSweeney notes.
While Fr McSweeney congratulates Mr Kenny on his Lazarus-like ability to lead his party from ''virtually nothing to its overwhelming success in the last General Election,'' he also notes that ''the Fine Gael party, now at Easter, will have its own Good Friday.
''So treat others as you would wish to be treated by them,'' he wrote.