Rome, Italy, Nov 9, 2011 / 03:50 am
The organizer of the 2012 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin fears the Irish government may have killed off any hope of Pope Benedict XVI visiting Ireland for the event.
The development follows a recent statement in the Irish Parliament in which the country’s foreign minister Eamon Gilmore said he had no intention of inviting the Pope to Ireland in 2012.
“I think that statement puts the Pope in a very diplomatically difficult situation,” Fr. Kevin Doran, the Secretary General of the Congress, told CNA on Nov. 8.
“If the Pope now came in the full knowledge that the government did not want to invite him, then he would be forced to come as a private citizen,” he noted.
Gilmore’s Oct. 18 statement to parliament began with him being asked “if an invitation has issued to the Pope to visit here in 2012.” He replied, “An invitation has not issued nor is one currently under active consideration.”