The news that Leo Varadkar is to step down as Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister) once his Fine Gael party selects a new leader, will give rise to reflection among the country’s Catholics about whether his successor will bring any changes to current Church-State relations.
Varadkar had a complex relationship with the Catholic Church, after making history by becoming the country’s youngest and first openly gay and first biracial leader. It was certainly a more confrontational relationship than any of his predecessors, exemplified most forcefully by his spearheading the 2018 referendum to liberalise the Republic’s abortion laws, a move backed two to one by voters.
“I’m proud that we have made the country a more equal and more modern place,” Varadkar said in his resignation statement annouced in Dublin on 20 March.
Yet his pending resignation follows an overwhelming defeat in two referendums on proposed constitutional changes on issues regarding marriage, family and the position of women in the home. But it would be inaccurate to conclude that the defeat of those measures reflects a revival of conservative values.
Many complex issues were involved and much of the opposition came from people with liberal views, concerned about the impact on care for people with disabilities, for example.
Varadkar’s being openly gay and in a relationship, coupled with his being the first Taoiseach who was not a practising Catholic, made clear from the start that his relationship with the Church would not be an easy one.
Though he has made clear that he does believe in God, he has also said he is not a regular churchgoer. Son of a Catholic mother and Hindu father, he received his secondary education at King’s Hospital, a Dublin school run by the Church of Ireland.
At times he appeared closer to the Protestant community in the Republic, though this did not translate into an amicable relationship with Unionists in Northern Ireland. While they see him as very much a nationalist, supporters of Sinn Féin, ironically, would see him as quasi-Unionist and very pro-British in his thinking.
In 2019, Varadkar had to apologise to the Catholic Church for comments made about the then opposition leader, Micheal Martin (now his deputy in the coalition government), in which Varadkar compared him to a priest who sinned but lectured others on sinning.
He was accused of tarring all priests with the one brush for the child abuse scandals and had to make clear his “tremendous respect for priests”.
On the other hand, the previous year saw him at pains to pay tribute to religious orders at the opening of Ireland’s first new Catholic secondary school in thirty years. It was notable that the parents of the new school in Tyrrelstown, a very multi-ethnic part of Dublin, opted to have a school with a Catholic ethos.
The Taoiseach welcomed Pope Francis to Dublin Castle in 2018. His speech on that occasion was seen as respectful to the pontiff, though at the same time it underlined how much the country had changed since the 1979 visit of St Pope John Paul II.
It must be remembered that some of the liberalising changes he pushed in Ireland have been opposed not only by the Catholic Church but by other denominations. In particular, the moves to liberalise the abortion law were opposed by the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, as well as by evangelical Christians and many Muslims.
Likewise, the proposed constitutional changes on family and care which were recently rejected drew opposition from Presbyterian, Muslim and Jewish leaders as well as the Catholic bishops.
While Ireland’s Catholic Church has a less prominent role in society as a result of massive decline in weekly Mass attendance and the impact of the abuse scandals, it still has a key role in communities across the country, which is something that the next Taoiseach will have to bear in mind.
Along with other Churches, it has played an important part in ensuring the integration of Ukrainian refugees in recent times, along with new arrivals from many other parts of the world, as well as working hard to combat rising homelessness in Ireland.
The next Taoiseach, whether he or she is Catholic or not, will have to remember that even in today’s more secular Ireland, faith groups are at the heart of local communities, and engagement with them is in the Government’s own interest.
Photo: Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gifts a bouquet of Shamrocks to US President Joe Biden during a St. Patrick’s Day Celebration in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, 17 March 2024. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images.)
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