Pope names US archbishop as new envoy to Ireland

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday named US archbishop Charles John Brown to be his new envoy to Ireland, after the previous ambassador was withdrawn during a row over child abuse scandals. The 52-year-old Brown has been working since 1994 at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the main Vatican department that enforces Church teachings and is now charged with investigating thousands of abuse cases. Brown was born in New York on October 13, 1959, and was ordained in 1989. The pope also on Saturday elevated Brown to the formal title of archbishop of Aquileia, an important early Christian centre in northeast Italy. Brown's predecessor Giuseppe Leanza was recalled from his post in July following the publication of a report into the Catholic Church's handling of abuse claims against 19 clerics in the southern Irish diocese of Cloyne. The report prompted Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny to launch an unprecedented attack on the Church, saying its response to the abuse showed a culture of "dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism" at the Vatican. The Vatican said it had recalled Leanza "for consultations," while the US-based abuse victim support group SNAP said Leanza had "refused to help government investigators looking at clergy sex crimes and cover-ups." Leanza has since been appointed as the papal envoy to the Czech Republic. The Vatican has acknowledged "grave failures" in its handling of the abuse cases and expressed "abhorrence" at the crimes but emphasised it had "in no way hampered or sought to interfere" with inquiries by the Irish authorities. Predominantly Catholic Ireland this month said it would close its embassy to the Vatican, presenting the move as an effort to save money although senior clergy voiced concern that Ireland was downgrading its ties to the Vatican. In a poll earlier this month commissioned by the Iona Institute, an Irish Catholic think-tank, 47 percent of Irish people said they held an unfavourable view of the Church with most of these respondents citing the abuse scandals. Twenty-two percent of the 1,000 people polled said they would be happy if the Church disappeared from Irish society completely, but 51 percent disagreed. Brown worked for years under Benedict when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before being elected pope in 2005. The fact that he was chosen from outside the usual Vatican diplomatic circles indicates the importance given to the sensitive posting, experts said. Brown, who is of Irish origin, is seen as highly competent and sociable. He faces a daunting task also in terms of local organisation of the Church as seven of Ireland's 26 dioceses are currently without a bishop following a series of resignations in the wake of the child abuse scandals.