Pope Francis will bypass Galway on his visit to Ireland next year because of the City Council’s decision to scrap the recital of a prayer before meetings.
That’s the warning issued by Fianna Fáil, who fear the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church won’t accept the city’s invitation to visit here in 2018 due to the dropping of the prayer from local authority meetings.
City Councillor Ollie Crowe, a former Deputy Mayor, revealed he would be tabling a motion for the prayer to be reinstated.
“I am in favour of saying a prayer before meetings. It takes only 30 seconds and then you can have 30 seconds of silent reflection, or whatever, after that, if you want. It is wrong to get rid of the prayer.
“The Pope hasn’t a notion of coming to Galway next year, if this is the craic we’re at. You might laugh at this but it’s true – the Catholic hierarchy sees these things and they will look at where Pope Francis is going to visit and they will see that the City Council voted to scrap the prayer before meetings and they’ll decide to go somewhere else.
“That’s the reality. I will be putting forward a notice of motion to keep the prayer,” said Cllr Crowe.
Fine Gael’s Pearce Flannery proposed at last November’s ordinary meeting to invite the Pontiff to Galway.
He said the visit “would be of great benefit to all people, religious and secular alike”.
Cllr Flannery’s proposal was agreed by a majority of Councillors; and in January, the Vatican responded to the request, indicating a visit to Galway – like one of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II, in 1979 – was under consideration.
However, Cllr Crowe believes the contentious vote by Councillors last month to scrap the prayer before meetings now puts the Pope’s visit in jeopardy.
Cllr Flannery, also proposed the standing order to replace the prayer with silent reflection.
The vote was tied seven-seven but Cllr Flannery had the casting vote because he was deputising for the mayor at that meeting.
Cllr Crowe said it was “the height of hypocrisy” for an elected representative to invite the Pope to Galway at one meeting and then to use a casting vote at another meeting to get rid of the prayer.
For the rest of this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.
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