Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy

Vatican rejects Irish prime minister's criticisms
Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
Sunday, September 4, 2011

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi gestures during a press conference at the Holy See Press Office, at the Vatican, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2011. The Vatican on Saturday vigorously rejected claims it sabotaged efforts by Irish bishops to report priests who sexually abused children to police and accused the Irish prime minister of making an "unfounded" attack against the Holy See. The Vatican issued a lengthy response to the Irish government following Prime Minister Enda Kenny's unprecedented July 20 denunciation of the Vatican's handling of abuse, in which he cited the "dysfunction, the disconnection, the elitism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day."

Vatican City --

The Vatican on Saturday vigorously rejected accusations it had sabotaged efforts by Irish bishops to report priests who sexually abused children to police and charged that the Irish prime minister had made an unfounded attack against the Holy See.

The Vatican issued a 24-page response to the Irish government after Prime Minister Enda Kenny and the Irish parliament publicly denounced the Vatican after the publication in July of a government-mandated investigation into priestly sex abuse in the diocese of Cloyne in southern Ireland. The report found that the Vatican had undermined attempts by Irish bishops to protect children by warning that their policy requiring abuse to be reported to police might violate church law.

The Cloyne report, and Kenny's unprecedented dressing down of the Holy See that followed, prompted cheers from Irish Catholics who have grown increasingly disgusted by the colossal scale of priestly sexual abuse and cover-up in Ireland and the Vatican's consistent claim that it bore no blame.

The Cloyne report based much of its accusations against the Holy See on a 1997 letter from the Vatican's ambassador to Ireland to the country's bishops expressing "serious reservations" about their policy requiring bishops to report abusers to police.

The Vatican concurred that, taken out of context, the 1997 letter could give rise to "understandable criticism." But it said the letter had been misinterpreted, that the Cloyne report's conclusions were "inaccurate" and that Kenny's denunciation was "unfounded."

The Vatican noted that at the time, there was no law in Ireland requiring professionals to report suspected abuse to police and that the issue was a matter of intense debate politically.

"Given that the Irish government of the day decided not to legislate on the matter, it is difficult to see how (the Vatican's) letter to the Irish bishops, which was issued subsequently, could possibly be construed as having somehow subverted Irish law or undermined the Irish state in its efforts to deal with the problem in question," the Vatican said.

Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore blasted such a technical, "legalistic" argument.

"The sexual abuse of children is such a heinous and reprehensible crime that issues about the precise status of documents should not be allowed to obscure the obligation of people in positions of responsibility to deal promptly with such abuse and report it," he said.

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