Northern Ireland First Minister Ian Paisley has said a possible visit by Pope Benedict to Northern Ireland would be a religious matter, not a political one. Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports.
He was speaking in Dublin yesterday after he delivered the Edward Carson lecture at Trinity College.
In an interview with The Irish Timeslast May, when asked about his role as First Minister, he replied: "Well, there are things I wouldn't go to. Say the pope came. I wouldn't go to a Mass service."
Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin said on Thursday that the announcement that the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland, Dr Seán Brady, was to become a cardinal on November 24th was a "sign of the interest of Benedict XVI to come to Northern Ireland, if not in the immediate future".
"Such a visit, alongside one of Queen Elizabeth to Dublin, would have the symbolic meaning of ending an era of our history and opening to something new, North and South," he said in New York.
Speculation of possible visits to Ireland by the pope and the British queen arose during the ad limina visit by Ireland's Catholic bishops to the Vatican last October. Such visits usually take place every five years and involve the bishops each giving a full report to Vatican officials on affairs in his diocese. During that visit it emerged that preliminary inquiries had been taking place in Rome about the feasibility of a papal visit, which was being presented as a culmination to the Northern Ireland peace process.
While Ireland's Catholic bishops were in Rome, the British ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Campbell, from Newry, Co Down, and the first Catholic to represent Britain at the Vatican since Reformation times, hosted a dinner for some of the Northern Ireland Catholic bishops, including Dr Brady.
It is understood the possibility of a papal visit to Northern Ireland was discussed.
Confirming to The Irish Times that such inquiries were under way in Rome then, sources had indicated that a papal visit would most likely take place in March or April of this year. This, however, was forestalled by the Northern Ireland Assembly elections leading up to the meeting of the Executive in May.
Last March, after she had met Pope Benedict at Castel Gandolfo, President Mary McAleese said he had not ruled out a pastoral visit to Ireland. "Now, he didn't say that he was coming - I have to be clear about that - but he said that we will have to see what is possible."
It is believed that, should the pope visit Ireland, it would be brief and he would most likely visit either Armagh or Derry, as intended by John Paul in September 1979. That intention was forestalled by the murder of Lord Mountbatten at Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, and of 18 British soldiers in an ambush at Warrenpoint, Co Down, the previous month.