December 2 | 
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Ireland’s new Papal nuncio on his way
— Mgr Charles Brown is expected to take up residency in Dublin in January of next year
Pope Benedict XVI’s newly appointed Papal nuncio to Ireland, US Mgr Charles Brown, is expected take up residency in Dublin in Ireland in January.
The 52-year-old Irish American has worked with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. His appointment comes after the recall of former Papal envoy to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, from his post in July following the publication of the Cloyne report—that detailed the Church’s handling of abuse claims against 19 clerics in Cork Diocese—and the closure of the Irish Embassy in the Vatican.
Reaction
Mgr Brown’s appointment was approved by the Irish Government at a cabinet meeting last Thursday.
Eamon Gilmore, Minister for Foreign Affairs, welcomed the news and said that he would be meeting Mgr Brown shortly after his arrival in Dublin to take up his position at the beginning of next year.
The minister added that Ireland would continued what he called its ‘active engagement with the Vatican through the appointment of a senior Dublin-based diplomat, a non-residential ambassador.’
Insight into appointment
Given that Mgr Brown has not been selected from within the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, many see his appointment as an attempt to build bridges between the Vatican and the Irish Government, which announced last month the closure of its embassy to the Holy See for economic reasons.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, however, said that he did not believe this was the case, adding that the new Papal nuncio was a ‘theologian’ who was ‘much more focused on theology than relations between Church and state.’
Mgr Brown was ordained a priest in 1989 in St Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, and was based at St Brendan’s parish in the Bronx until 1981.
The new nuncio has worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1994 and had previously studied at the University of Notre Dame, Oxford University, Toronto and Rome. He was appointed assistant secretary of the International Theological Commission in September 2009.
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