Thursday 7 July 2005 ****** BERTIE AHERN'S PAPAL VISIT TODAY ********** The moves to have Bertie Ahern visit Pope Benedict in Rome today were almost certainly initiated by the Department of Foreign Affairs before the French vote on the EU Constitution five weeks ago, on 29 May. Iveagh House, which decides these things, will have been acting on the assumption of a French and Dutch Yes to the EU Constitution in their referendums - in which case we would all now be readying ourselves for an Irish referendum on the same Constitution in October. Bertie's Papal visit will have been designed by the Department of Foreign Affairs to polish his Catholic credentials in order to appeal to an important section of voters in that expected Irish EU referendum. Because of the French and Dutch votes however, the Iveagh House people will now have had to draft a different article on "What I am going to tell the Pope" for the Taoiseach to put his name to in today's "Irish Times". But Bertie Ahern's Rome visit should almost certainly be seen as the aborted remains of what was originally intended as a piece of cynical referendum engineering. As originally planned, the Taoiseach's Papal visit will also have been designed to help get the Irish bishops "on side" for the EU Constitution referendum then thought likely - just as their Lordships were led by the noses to back the Treaty of Nice referendums in 2001 and 2003, even though the Irish bishops had never taken a partisan position on such secular political matters in the EU referendums that were held in 1972(EEC Accesssion), 1987(Single European Act),1992(Maastricht) and 1998(Amsterdam). It is probable that the European Committee of the Irish Hierarchy, which is staffed by Eurofanatics who led the Hierarchy as a whole into quite shameful and counter-productive positions in support of deeper EU integration in the Nice Treaty referendums, will have been consulted by Iveagh House in concerting Bertie Ahern's Papal visit with a view to helping out with Ireland's then expected EU Constitution referendum. (Signed) Anthony Coughlan Secretary
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