The decision by Ireland government to  close of the Irish embassy to the Holy See in Rome brings to life a number of Vatican nightmares. It was made for “economic reasons”, which means that keeping a diplomatic mission at the papal court is supposed to be expensive (implicitly, uselessly expensive).

In a period of financial turmoil, economy might be a perfect reason, or excuse, for other governments to take similar steps. It already happened in 1867, when the United States wanted to retaliate for Pius IX’s alleged support to the Confederates, and the Union government simply cut off funds for the then Vatican legation (there wasn’t yet an embassy). Is there the risk of a potential domino effect?.

Actually, the government of Ireland did not break the diplomatic relationships with the Holy See. Simply, it decided not to have a residential ambassador. There are two types of Holy See ambassadors: those who have their own embassies in Rome and those who work out of the embassies in any other country, with the exception of Italy. The Holy See, in fact, has never agreed to accredit an ambassador who is already accredited with the Italian state. Without exception.

In fact, ever since the 1929 concordat, the Vatican – Paddy Agnew wrote – «has mounted a zealous guard on the independence of its sovereign city-state in the heart of Rome. However, the point about the dual missions in Rome (there 77 countries that have two ambassadors there) is that they owe their existence to the Holy See’s desire to separate itself from the Italian state. The question goes back to first World War days, when there was only one national embassy in Rome. When both Austria and Germany – then at war with Italy – withdrew their diplomatic representation, the Holy See found itself without German or Austrian interlocutors.  The Holy See objected to ambassadors being withdrawn because, while Italy might have been at war with Austria and Germany, the Holy See was not».

The closure of the Irish embassy to the Holy See has been seen in the context of a deterioration in relations between Rome and Dublin since the publication of the Murphy Report in November, 2009. The third of four statutory reports on the abuse of children by Catholic clergy in Ireland, it followed an inquiry into the handly of clerical child sex abuse allegations in the Dublin diocese.

In July 13th last the Cloyne report was published. It accused the Vatican, through its opposition to the Irish bishops’ 1996 guidelines on handling clerical child sex abuse, of giving comfort to dissenters in the church who did not want to implement them. In a secret 1997 letter to the Irish bishops, Rome described the 1996 rules as «merely a study document» and not official. Archbishop Leanza – then Papal nuncio – was summoned to meet Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore. He was told by Gilmore that Vatican intervention in Irish affairs was «totally inappropriate, unjustified and unacceptable even within the context of the arrangements of the church itself ». The effect – he said – was that the «the abuse of children in this country was not reported to the authorities». He asked for an explanation.

That same day, July 14th last, Taoiseach Enda Kenny described the Vatican’s approach to clerical abuse inquiries in Ireland as «absolutely disgraceful». Six days later, on July 20th, he delivered his extraordinary address to the Dáil on Cloyne. He said that the report had «brought the Government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture». And then he exposed «an attempt by the Holy See, to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago». The report – he affirmed – excavated «the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism . . . the narcissism . . . that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day». Far from «listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal . . . the Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer». Five days later Archbishop Leanza was recalled to Rome. He has since been posted to the Czech Republic.

On September 3rd the Vatican issued a 25-page response to the Cloyne report and comments by the Tánaiste and Taoiseach, rejecting claims it had interfered in Irish affairs or inquiries. That response was described by the Tánaiste as «highly technical, highly legalistic, very much dancing on the head of a pin».

Actually, the clergy abuse seems just to be a casus belli in order to close the embassy. One of the Wikileaks dispatches, indeed, proved that in diplomatic environment many noticed the tension between Ireland and Holy See. And  Massimo Franco – an Italian commentator, that diagnosed the “implosions” of Benedict’s Vatican in the book C’era una volta un Vaticano – wrote that «”Catholic” Ireland could prove to be the pathfinder of a worrying development for the Vatican, whose diplomatic and moral weight is openly and badly challenged. If it doesn’t move on rapidly, the echo of the scandals combined with the effects of the financial crisis could weaken its voice and international presence. And the closure of the Irish embassy could turn to be just a bitter appetiser: the first in a series».

This is exactly the reason why the Holy See took its time to appoint the new Papal nuncio in Ireland. Charles Brown is not a usual Vatican diplomat but comes, with a background at the Holy See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), most uncommon for a papal nuncio. At the CDF since 1994 – where he worked for 11 years with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger  – Brown is not only familiar with the Pope’s thinking but also with the church’s response to the issue of clerical child sexual abuse. As an Irish American he will have an intuitive understanding of the Catholic people of this State and of this island. As a man who has served at the CDF for 17 years he will be deeply familiar with the issue that has plagued the Irish Catholic Church for almost two decades. He will need to be skillful, since reports into six Catholics dioceses by the Chuch’s child protection watchdog are going to be published.

His duty will be to stop the decline of Catholicism in Ireland. In the 1970s, more than 90% of Irish Catholics said they went to Mass once a week. Now the number is something about 44%. In addition, “a la carte” Catholicism took hold and affected political life. Young Catholics began to excuse themselves from certain church teachings, such as the ban on premarital sex. Married couples practiced birth control. The sale of condoms was legalized in 1979, despite church opposition. In 1995, a referendum amended the constitution to give couples the right to divorce. A similar measure in 1986 had been roundly defeated.

This scenario is similar in several European countries. Malta has recently a law that allow divorce, and the taboo of a law on abortion fell also in the Catholic Portugal. At the same time, Vatican diplomacy seemed to have lost its weight, due to a strong campaigning against the “diplomatic status” of the Holy See and to the spread of news about clergy scandals.

Irish case is exemplar: looking at it, one can find the roots of what is going on all over Europe. For three centuries the Catholic Church has been on the defensive against secularism – even if it on the other hand secularizing trends have also meant a liberation of the Church from forms of wordliness, as the Pope recently put it. The assault began in France in the 1700s and helped to provoke the revolution of 1789, which stripped the powerful French Catholic hierarchy of its control of education, political clout and landed wealth.

Napoleon I was an avid secularist, who first invaded the papal states in Italy in 1798, releasing the Jews from their ghettos there. This began the modern erosion of the worldly power of the papacy, which continued with the rise of Italian nationalism in the 1800s. Stripped of its landed wealth – at one time about one third of Italy – the papacy was eventually confined to the Vatican palace in Rome by the Lateran Treaty of 1929.

At first repelled in independent Ireland by the strongly pro-Catholic leaders of Ireland’s revolution, secularism nevertheless advanced after 1922 with Ireland’s need to keep pace with cultural and educational developments in the west generally. Despite the tenacity of churchmen like Dublin Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, secularism advanced steadily, with the secularisation of the educational curriculum and industrialisation of Ireland from the 1960s – Benedict XVI himself outlined this scenario in his letter to the Catholic Church of Ireland.

The clerical abuse scandals since 1992 have since greatly reduced the prestige of the institutional Catholic Church. By 1997 Bishop Thomas Flynn had observed that «Ireland is becoming a secular country». As younger generations are also generally less observant, this decline seems set to continue over the next two decades – especially as recruitment to the Catholic clergy continues to be too low to prevent the average age of clergy rising well above 60.

Together with the decline of the faith, goes the decline of diplomatic impact of Holy See. The Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy – the Vatican diplomatic school – seems unable to license high-profile diplomats. And these latter are really needed. While the watchword may be discretion, the Holy See is ready to make its voice heard and even go to the mat when there are serious moral issues at stake. Such was the case in 1994 with the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. The conference became a battle of different worldviews, and the Vatican was not afraid to play hardball in such a pivotal showdown.

Vatican diplomacy stretches way back to its embryonic conception around the 4th  Century with the establishment of the first pontifical representatives at the level of the Ecumenical Council, through the adoption of diplomacy as a means of strengthening church and inter-state relations within the mid 16th century, the creation of the first Vatican Diplomatic Academy in 1703, to the decline of Vatican diplomacy following the church’s  lost of influence on world politics as a result of state absolutism and anti-Christian philosophies like the French Revolution, which considerably diminished the church’s authority at the international scene.

Other historical landmarks that had an influence on Vatican Diplomacy were the disappearance of the Pontifical States in 1870, the recognition of the prowess of the Papacy in 1915 during the Congress of Vienna and the creation of the Council of the Vatican state in 1929 to resolve the Roman question; a question which focused on a state as an entity with a territory and a government.

The creation of the Vatican State paved the way for the church not to depend on Italian diplomacy and enabled the Pope to carry out his mission as the successor of Peter in all autonomy. Now, after the climax of John Paul II – that will go down in history as one of the greatest concordant popes, having signed a record 36 bilateral accords with 36 states between 1979 and 2004 -, (while with Joseph Ratzinger as pope, four other countries have decided to establish residency in Rome for their ambassadors to the Vatican: Australia, Cameroon, East Timor, and Benin) – are there diplomatic risks for Vatican diplomacy?

The Ratzinger-Schülerkreis, that is the ‘Ratzinger Students’ Circle’, brings together once a year the old theology professor, now pope Benedict XVI, and his former students to discuss a new topic every year.

The first such meeting was held when Joseph Ratzinger was still a professor in Regensburg. Once he became archbishop of Munich, his students asked him to continue and he accepted. When he moved to Rome to take up the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the annual event continued. Typically, meetings were held at a monastery over a weekend. Now, the location is Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope is during the summer vacations.

New Evangelization is the main topic of Benedict XVI’s pontificate. The 31st of May Benedict XVI  addressed to the participants in the first plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for promoting the new evangelization, asking them to «intensify the missionary action» and to be «genuinely credible». It was Benedict XVI line even in 2000, when he held a catechesis on new evangelization.

The new evangelization deals with the whole world, but it is particularly addressed to the post western Christianity. From its Jewish origins, Christianity, conquered the Pagan world and spread East to Iraq, India and China. Now, it is turning to its origins, being dominated by the people, cultures and countries of the South.

Western society, on the other hand, is on the path of an unprecedented secularization. The idea of God is excluded by the history, but this leads to the refusal that some people can believe in God, so bringing his belief in his everyday life.  It is a matter of religious freedom, still confused as a civil rights problem.

Just take a look at the Malta scenario. Benedict XVI went to Malta the last year. In Malta, Christianity had such an important role that – until now – the little island was the last country in the world where nor abortion, nor divorce were legal. Malta was, in this sense, the last catholic bastion in a highly secularized Europe. This bastion is now weaker, since a referendum promoted a law that allows divorce. The 54 per cent of population voted in favor of the divorce, nevertheless an aggressive campaign brought on by anti-divorce leagues. How long will the forbid to make an abortion now? Portugal – one of the last countries where abortion was not legalized –  approved a very few years ago the termination of pregnancy law.

What will be of Europe in the next 50 years? One should look at  Czech Republic – many say – to see the Europe of the future. The Prague Spring, and then the opposition to Communism, was lead by Catholic movements. But now – according to the last data – the 73 per cent of the Czech population proclaim itself as atheist.

But there are several signals that there is a a space for the resurgence of religious identity, or – at least – that something different, more religious oriented than before, is going on. David Cameron, British prime minister, began to criticize the multicultural model that characterized Great Britain. The 7^th of July 2005 London terrorist attack  is still in the memory of British people. What impressed more was that the attack had been thought and brought on by second-generation sons of immigrated. «Under a State multiculturalism – Cameron said – we encouraged different cultures to live different lives, detached the one from the other and from the mai none. We had not been able to give a vision of society they aimed to belong to».

The new phenomenon of Spain (now also spread in Ireland, Greece and France) is the indignados march. An «ingenuous» movement – some observer said – born against the government’s hated Internet piracy legislation, furiously opposed by Spanish youth, who consider free downloads a cultural right, and become a general movement against the corrupt politicians. But there was something more behind the almost 20 thousand people that marched to Puerta del Sol in Madrid tweeting that the Square was «on the Cañada Real grazing paths; we have the right to sleep there»,  claiming protection under a thirteenth-century royal decree—still defended passionately by environmental groups—that protects the rights of shepherds to camp out with their flocks for three consecutive nights on the hundreds of ancient grazing routes that crisscross the country, even traversing major cities like Madrid. Nobody knows who were the indignados, since  most of them  appeared from nowhere: university-educated, intensely networked 20- to 30-year-olds, many still living with their parents, all acutely aware that post-bubble Spain has little or nothing to offer them as unemployment soars and precarious part-time employment becomes the norm. Even during the boom years, Spanish youth generally worked on short-term contracts with no benefits. The labels mileurista (1,000 euros a month) or ni-ni (neither work nor studies) summarized their humiliation. On Puerta del Sol, the political parties, even the communist-green Left Unity, whose program echoes theindignados’ demands, were absent. So were the big labor unions.

This general uneasiness played its role in the last elections held in Spain. The commitment of Zapatero to legalize gay marriages, in vitro fertilization and assisted hatching, common law marriage, and on the other hand the «war of chapels» brought on under its government – Zapatero was obviously not directly responsible for it, even if the war of chapels is seen as a direct consequence of his ideas – were damaging for Zapatero administration, accused from the people not to be able to take care of the economy. Zapatero administration, indeed, did not pass in vain, since many are now indifferent toward religion.

In Hungary, Christianity took its role back. The preamble of the new Constitution of Hungary refers to God and Christianity as “unifiyng elements” of the country. The political nation of Hungary is identified with the ethnic nation, so discrimating non magyar minorities that live in the country. The Constitution gives the right to vote to the Hungarians that live in the near countries, and this would create friction with Slovakia and Romania, where great Magyar minorities live.

The Costitution would eventually lead to the prohibition of abortion by law, by stating that «the life of the foetus may be protected since the moment it is conceived». More, the competences of Constitutional Court are restricted, since the Court cannot occupy of economics and social issues; the influence of the executive power on judiciary power is extended, so judiciary power is less independent than before.

The Constitution was outlined by the center-oriented Hungarian party Fidesz. Fidesz won the election in 2010 getting two third of the Parliament seats. Thanks to this overwhelming majority, Fidesz bypassed the opposition boycott to the Constitutional reform, as well as some little riots.This new charta, said Fidesz spokesman, will «complete the democratization power begun in 1989, when Communist regime in Hungary collapsed». The great majority of the Parliament voted for the new Constitution, but Jobbik, the extreme right party, and this is a signal that this is not a merely Christian-conservative constitution.

It is to notice that, while Hungarian Parliament turned to a Christian-oriented new Constitution, the Hungarian Episcopal Conference changed the name of the Commission Justice and Peace to Commission Caritas in veritate. By re-naming the commission, bishops say they wanted to homage the Papal encyclical. But the encyclical – written by several hands, and often mystified from the liberal-conservative wing (e.g. Michael Novak and all the branch of studies brought on by Acton Institute) that give a capitalistic oriented reading of the encyclical – is just a part of the Social Doctrine of the Church, and this renaming has been seen as a sort of weakening of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Caritas in veritate is also the name of a commission of European Episcopal Conference, and it is the name of a research area of Università Lateranense in Rome – the university of the Pope – sponsored by Acton Institute. Was the Hungarian Episcopal Conference choice a counter position to the new Constitutional chart? Vatican insiders just do not want to deny this kind of scenario.

What about Italy? Cardinal Camillo Ruini prophecy – the cardinal, former president of Italian Episcopal Conference, make this prophecy to a few friends – is that Italy itself is going to a sort of Zapatero-era, even if softer. There are several signals: Milan and Naples new mayors are respectively  an ex communist (but very grateful to the founder of Communion and Liberation don Luigi Giussani) and an ex magistrate that became an idol of anti-politics. The political indifference feed the religious indifference, while the parties that can count on a solid tradition do not have the strength to be in the public debate. In the mean time, religious indifference is taking all Europe as a disease.

That’s why there is the need for a new evangelization. The Pope itself wanted the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization . Benedict XVI encouraged the members of the Pontifical Council to give a special contribution for the 13^th synod of bishops, scheduled for October 2012 and dedicated to “New Evangelization and transmission of Christian Faith”. The question one can make is if there is a new evangelization without the Social Doctrine of the Church. Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga considers the Social Doctrine of the Church the «best kept secret in the world». So well kept that there is no trace of it in the motu proprio Ubicumque et semper that promulgates the new pontifical council for the New Evangelization.

«The current crisis – Benedict XVI said – brings with it traces of the exclusion of God from people’s lives, from a generalized indifference towards the Christian faith to an attempt to marginalize it from public life. In the past decades, it was still possible to find a general Christian sensibility which unified the common experience of entire generations raised in the shadow of the faith which had shaped culture. Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing a drama of fragmentation which no longer acknowledges a unifying reference point; moreover, it often occurs that people wish to belong to the Church, but they are strongly shaped by a vision of life which is in contrast with the faith».

This vision now can fail. Is now the time for a new true Christianity to come?