President McAleese addresses right wing Catholic Organisation

international | miscellaneous | news report

Tuesday August 24, 2010 13:05

by Brendan Butler

President McAleese addresses Communione e Liberazione

Last Sunday the President of Ireland , Mary Mc Aleese, was in Italy to address an arch conservative and right wing Italian Catholic powerful organisation called 'Communione e Liberazione' ( Communion and Liberation )
The question must be asked who was she representing at this prestigious event attended by the right wing Berlusconi Government and by mainly arch conservative catholic churchmen.
Was she acting on her own initiative , had she got permission from the Irish Govenment to address this most divisive organisation and was she being used by this organisation to give it further international credibility.

On Sunday night last ,22nd August 2010 , President Mc Aleese addressed the annual gathering of an Italian right wing and archconservative catholic Organisation in Rimini, Italy and was the first guest speaker to open the event. While the theme of her address of 'The forces which change history are those which change the hearts of men' was a wideranging one the issue is whether the President of Ireland's presence at this event gave further international credibility to this Italian organisation which was described by author journalist Gordon Urquhart as 'one of the mysterious and powerful sects in the catholic Church' in his book 'The Pope's Armada. The present Pope uses its members to comprise his household and together with Opus Dei and The legionnaires of Christ the form the vanguard of the new Papal absolutist obedient adherents.
These organisations have acquired vast wealth from the their rich adherents which in the case of Communione e Liberazione is displayed every year at Rimini.
Mary Mc Aleese ,the president of Ireland is not representing the new multi cultural and multi religious make-up of the Irish people by being wined and dined by an Italian right wing catholic organisation and it shows poor judegement on her part.
Just as the Legionnaires of Christ have been exposed as an organisation whose founder abused not only his seminarians but his own sons born out of affairs with vulnerable women I hope that this vist by President Mc Aleese to another like minded organisation in the catholic Church won't come back to haunt her .