Former Irish president Mary McAleese has revealed how Pope John Paul refused to shake her hand when they met and shook her husband’s hand, instead, asking him “would you not prefer to be the president of Ireland instead of your wife?”
McAleese recalled she quickly interjected: “You would never have done that to a male president. I’m the elected president of Ireland whether you like it or not.”
Disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law also tried to intimidate her stating, “I’m sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as president,” she recalled when they met.
Law brought her to a room where a female right-wing lawyer and theologian Mary Ann Glendon was waiting and tried to brief her on why only men should have positions of power in the Catholic Church.
She said: “His remarks were utterly inappropriate and unwelcome.
She added: “We were initially gobsmacked by this arrogant man.
Law was later at the center of a huge pedophile priest scandal and was forced to resign before fleeing to Rome.
McAleese, who was the second woman to hold the role of the Irish Presidency, continued to claim the Catholic Church to be “one of the last great bastions of misogyny."
"It's an empire of misogyny," she said.
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