The Pope is not your average tourist. If he were, he’d be perfectly entitled to a typical Irish welcome.

You’d give him the iron handshake (being careful not to break any fingers of course) and ask: “How’s it going, me oul’ segotia? Where’d you buy the bleedin’ hat, pal? Love it. How’s about going for a pint? I could do with wettin’ me whistle. What do you mean you want a pint of Creme de Menthe? You’re having a laugh! You’re not? Two pints of Creme de Menthe it is, so. Barman!”

In fairness, Francis seems like a basically pleasant sort of fellow. He gives the impression of being far less stuffy, bureaucratic and stuck up the Vatican’s ivory tower than the vast majority of his predecessors. And he has the kind of twinkle in his eye that doubtless feeds the slightly obscure sexual fantasies of multiple millions of faithful women all over the world.

A bit of a pop star you might say. He is, after all, a not un-handsome man from Argentina. And he might even have a sense of humour. If you were going for a drink, you’d anticipate a few wry chuckles over the pints of Creme de Menthe.

Tell me another one!

But life as a Pope is a little bit more complicated than that. He is, after all, the head of a Church, which actively facilitated, and then covered up and denied hundreds of thousands of crimes of child sexual abuse, by members of the clergy all over the world, over a sustained period of decades (that we know of), so that the guilty within its own ranks could escape censure and incarceration; a church which has, for centuries, been responsible for the systematic subjugation of women, and which still treats over 50% of the population as third-class citizens; which has always cynically put the interests of the institution before the good of society, and in particular of children; and which has deliberately demonised gays, subjected them to appalling maltreatment, damned their sexuality as something to be ashamed of, and in every way attempted to turn them into non-persons.

And so a free ride is out of the question.

HIDE AND SEEK

Neither can you get away from the fact that the Pope’s visit to Ireland right now is highly political. The hope, among the Irish bishops, and their lay enforcers, had been that the announcement of the upcoming Papal trip might rekindle historic religious pieties and thereby sway the referendum on Repealing the 8th in favour of a ‘No’ vote.

That didn’t work. But they are still on war footing. This visit is part of a wider attempt to resist and undermine the result of the referendum in any and every way possible; to win back the middle-ground in Ireland for the Holy Roman Catholic Church; and to shore up the Church’s position on discriminatory, sectarian education. They desperately want to retain control of schools, especially at primary level. This visit is about influencing the climate in which that debate takes place, as effectively as possible.

(Sure, aren’t we lovely people! What’s wrong with us being in charge?) Here in Hot Press we have no problem, as such, with the Pope and his beliefs. It is a free world and our view is that Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, Moonies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Zoroastrians, Rastafarians and all the rest have an equal right to believe whatever they like about the origins of the universe, and the existence or otherwise of an interventionist God, who meddles – or has meddled – to one degree or other in human affairs.

Readers will recall that the Kerry TD, Danny Healy-Rae, told us boldly: “Noah’s Ark is fact.” God is in charge of the weather! Well, what I like about someone like Danny Healy-Rae is that he is consistent in his views. If you get up on a sunny morning and say “That’s a lovely day, thank God” then the logical corollary is that the same fella is responsible for floods, drought, pestilence, famine and all the rest.

I have a heard members of the clergy say it again and again over the years: “God is good.” That’s what Ronaldo thinks when he sticks the ball in the back of the net and then looks to the heavens and blesses himself. But the idea is utterly preposterous. If we accept the idea of an interventionist God, then he is demonstrably bad. Imagine helping Ronaldo to score a goal, while allowing people to be butchered in Syria. To paraphrase Stephen Fry, that makes him a self-regarding, despotic megalomaniac.

But all of the religions in the Judeo-Christian tradition – including Islam – are based very specifically on the belief in an interventionist God.

There is a tendency nowadays to fudge every aspect of Christian or Catholic belief – when it suits. In a recent Hot Press interview, we spoke with the former Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, about a variety of religious topics. It was quite clear from her answers that she honestly doesn’t really know what she believes in – or, alternatively, that she isn’t prepared to be honest about its implications.

In our view, it is possible to agree across religious and secular barriers alike that freedom of thought is fundamental in a democratic Republic. But it is not possible for a Christian – or a Muslim – to say that they can both be right simultaneously. Either Jesus Christ was the son of God who came down on earth to redeem all humankind or he wasn’t. Christianity says he was. Islam says he wasn’t.

Whether they like it or nor, to be Catholic is to say: “I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, made incarnate, and we must base our credo on his words, as passed down through the gospels and not any earlier or later texts.” In believing this, you are explicitly insisting that the Jewish version (the Prophet has yet to come) and the Islamic version (Mohammed was the prophet), of what is more or less the same story, are wrong.

This is surely what faith and belief is all about. It is certainly what I was taught that it was about. Jesus saves. Put your faith in him and all will be well. Put it elsewhere – or nowhere at all – and you’re in trouble. So why is someone like Mary Hanafin not prepared to say this? Why are Catholics in general playing hide and seek about what it all means?

PERSECUTION OF GAYS

So were does the Pope stand on these issues? Does he believe in indoctrination and control? Or in adults making free choices as to what they believe?

He could, for example, use the opportunity of his trip to Ireland to disavow any desire for the Catholic Church in Ireland to maintain control over Primary Schools. He could instruct the Irish Hierarchy to pass ownership of school buildings across to the State, in full and final recompense for the Church’s role in child sex abuse; but also as a clear statement about freedom of thought, ideas and conscience.

He could say: we do not need to indoctrinate children. Everyone is free to believe what they like. Our message is strong enough to win the support of adults and that is the right time for people to make decisions about what religion they want to be part of, if any. But I don’t think he will, because I believe the old approach of getting a foothold early and trying to hold onto it runs far too deep.

There is one other pressing issue that I think he must address. In 2015, the Catholic Church in Ireland quietly campaigned for a ‘No’ vote in the Referendum to allow Same Sex Marriage here. Since then, a new, more slithery form of speech has been introduced, culminating in the statement that ‘all families’ would be welcome at the World Meeting of Families event in Croke Park, which the Pope will attend.

Well, it won’t wash. The time for plámásing and platitudes in relation to homosexuality is over.

In a spirit of fairness, Hot Press has asked a series of simple, straightforward questions of the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmaid Martin, in relation to the Church’s attitude to gays and lesbians. It is an opportunity for the Church to move on and to say so openly. So far the Archbishop has failed to answer those questions.

In the public interest, we now want to put the same queries to the Pontiff himself. They are printed on page 70 of this issue, but by the time you read this we will have sent them through to the Vatican. Given the extent of the historic persecution of gay people, which is ongoing in certain parts of the world, and can result in lengthy jail sentences, torture and execution, depending on the brutality of the regime, it is imperative for the Church to come clean with everyone in relation to its views on the issue. What homosexuals, male or female, do sexually is either sinful or it is not. It is either completely acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church or it is not.

They need to provide the answers. Gay people are entitled to them. We are waiting in anticipation...