Vatican extends a cool hand to Irish President

A diplomatic spat has erupted over claims that the Vatican has snubbed the Irish President, Mary Robinson (right), by deciding not to confer any decoration on her when she visits the Pope this weekend.

The report, carried in the Irish Independent newspaper yesterday, was denied by Catholic Church sources in Dublin. A Church statement yesterday saying it was never policy to confer visiting heads of state with honours during private visits.

Mrs Robinson's predecessor as Irish President, Patrick Hillery, was photographed being presented with an honour during his visit to the Vatican in April 1989.

The President's itinerary for her official visit to Italy listed the visit to the Vatican among her formal engagements during the four-day trip, which raised the question of whether the Holy See has now downgraded her meeting with the Pope. Her four-day Italian visit will also include dinner with President Scalfaro, and an address to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The Irish Independent quoted sources in Rome as saying that "because of the President's known liberalism as a lawyer, particularly in taking on causes that confronted traditional Catholic Church teaching, she had identified herself with the secular standpoint." This referred to her role in campaigns for lifting the ban on contraception and the right to seek and provide information on abortion, a battle which went to the European courts and was finally resolved by a 1992 referendum in favour of Mrs Robinson's liberal camp after she had become head of state.

Diplomatic sources in Dublin stressed President Hillery's 1989 trip had been an official visit to the Vatican state. An Irish diplomatic source told The Independent: Mrs Robinson "is not on an official visit to the Vatican. She is on an official visit to Rome, to the FAO. Mr Hillery was on an official state visit to the Vatican," - which seemed to support the Church account.