The broad strokes of Seán Donlon’s potted report on the decision of the Irish Government to reopen its embassy to the Vatican obscure as much as they clarify (“Diplomacy’s green shoots, 1 February). To argue, as Donlon suggests, that the reopening marks “the beginning of a more balanced relationship between Church and State” is far too generous an appraisal. There was no principle involved in shutting down the embassy and none in reopening it. It was shut the first time in order to gain votes from anti-Catholic Church sentiment and it is being reopened now to take some of the heat out of the anti-Catholic tag that the Irish Government has earned as it prepares for local and European elections in coming months. Similarly, it is laughable to suggest that