Analyzing Irish politicians' statements, Vatican response
September 05, 2011
Writing for First Things, Father Raymond de Souza provides an excellent analysis of the Vatican's response to the Cloyne report.
Father de Souza makes a number of incisive observations about the intemperate comments by Irish politicians and the Vatican's measured response. Particularly interesting is his analysis of how the Irish prime minister came to use a quotation from then-Cardinal Ratzinger, pulled totally out of context from a 1990 statement on the role of theologians:
Is it plausible that when Mr. Kenny sat down to draft his address to parliament that he recalled what Cardinal Ratzinger had written 21 years ago in the CDF document on the proper mission of theology? Or is it more likely that he asked his speechwriters to find something from Ratzinger that he could put to inflammatory use? Or perhaps that those in the Irish Church desirous of undermining the authority of Rome fed to Mr. Kenny’s team the wildly out-of-context quotation?
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