By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing - Pope Francis was silent about Ireland – a very odd reticence by a man who has no qualms about weighing in on public issues like climate change, fossil-fuel exploration, immigration, Middle Eastern politics, Hindu persecution of Muslim Rohingyas, international economics – the list goes on. All these have moral dimensions, of course, though it’s hard to see what expertise or insight the Vatican brings to such complex situations. By contrast, allowing abortion in Ireland means the direct and immediate killing of thousands of innocents.