An astute, intelligent and competent Vatican diplomat who made no secret of his liking for Ireland and Irish Catholicism, Dr Luciano Storero, the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, died on October 1st aged 74.
Those not intimately familiar with church affairs will probably not have been too aware of his involvement in Irish public life following his appointment as Papal Nuncio in November 1995. Although he served in Ireland during a difficult time, when Irish Catholicism found itself at the centre of widespread and unprecedented criticism following the sex and child abuse scandals of the early 1990s, he tended to keep a low public profile.
When Dr Storero was appointed nuncio, friends and fellow diplomats warned him he would be returning to a very different Ireland from the place where he had previously served between 1959 and 1962. And if he had any doubts in that respect, Ireland voted for the legalisation of divorce just two weeks after his appointment, choosing to reject a last-minute appeal from Pope John Paul II, calling on Irish Catholics to reflect on the "unbreakable" bond of marriage.
Any remaining doubts must have disappeared when he found himself being sued for damages in a civil action taken against the church by Mr Paul Molloy, from Co Wexford who claimed he was among those sexually abused by Wexford-based priest, Father Sean Fortune. In the civil action, it was claimed that the nunciature had been told during the mid-1980s about the "abuses" being perpetrated by Father Fortune but had chosen to do nothing about them.
When the case came to the High Court in Dublin last December, the court was told Dr Storero was entitled to plead diplomatic immunity.
Senior Curia sources in Rome suggest Dr Storero's "low profile" during the last five years in Ireland was a mark in his favour. According to that Vatican logic, the Papal Nuncio who passes through without making front page headlines or becoming involved in public controversy is "a good Papal Nuncio".
He was nuncio to Greece when he was appointed to Ireland in 1995. Irish diplomatic sources, based in Greece at the time, recall that he proved very able at handling a difficult brief in a country that is 95 per cent Greek Orthodox. Not only were relations between the Vatican and the Greek Orthodox Church subject to ongoing tensions, but Dr Storero also found himself called on to act as intermediary with the Greek government, mainly on behalf of Filipino migrant workers of the Catholic faith.
Dr Storero had previously worked in Venezuela and India. Vatican sources suggest he probably looked on his service as nuncio to India as the highlight of his 47-year long diplomatic career, pointing out that he was an able, if tactful defender of Catholic interests in the difficult circumstances of the Indian subcontinent where Catholicism is very much in a minority status.
Dr Storero's experience in both India and Greece ought to have made him sensitive to the problems of minorities and might have been expected to produce a fruitful contribution to the question of ecumenical dialogue in Ireland. However, perhaps the very hidebound nature of the job of nuncio argued against such a contribution, at least as far as the public is concerned. When the Apostolic Nunciature in Dublin recently said he was "always concerned to foster good ecumenical relations with all religious leaders in Ireland", the statement may have had an element of bland protocol about it.
Yet, Irish church sources recall that he was keen to be seen at the side of the Australian cardinal, Dr Edward Cassidy, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, when he visited Ireland in 1998 for the launch of the book, Christian Unity, An Ecumenical Second Spring?, written by Jesuit priest, Father Michael Hurley.
A tall, imposing man born in Pinasca near Turin on September 26th, 1926, Dr Storero first joined the Vatican's diplomatic service in 1953. For the first 17 years he worked in nunciatures in Egypt, Japan, Ireland (1959 to 1962), the USA, India and Sri Lanka. From 1970, he served as nuncio or pro-nuncio to the Dominican Republic, Cameroon, Gabon, India, Venezeula and Greece before being appointed nuncio to Ireland in November 1995.
Dr Storero had been ill for some time and had already had a request for early retirement accepted by the Vatican. He was due to leave Ireland to return to his native Piedmont last weekend.
Dr Storero is survived by his sister.
Dr Luciano Storero: born 1926; died, October 2000