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Irish leader hits back at Pope in wake of criticism from Rome

Government calls sex abuse response ‘very technical and legalistic’

By
CATHAL DERVAN,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Sunday, September 4, 2011, 8:18 AM
Updated Sunday, September 4, 2011, 8:26 AM

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Enda Kenny


The Irish government has reminded the pope and Vatican authorities Vatican that child abuse will not be tolerated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and his deputy Eamon Gilmore have responded to Saturday’s statement from the Holy See in relation to the Cloyne Report.

The Vatican finally responded to the damning report on Saturday when it was critical of the Kenny’s attack on the Catholic Church hierarchy this summer.

Kenny, yet to formally reply to the statement, has said he stands by his attack on the Catholic Church leadership and its handling of the clerical sex abuse scandal in the Cloyne diocese.

“I do not regret my response to the report when I made that statement to the Dail (Irish parliament) in July, I will respond fully in due course,” said Kenny at a Cavalry Remembrance Day ceremony at the Curragh Army Camp.

Deputy Prime Minister Gilmore, leader of the Labor Party, has also responded to the Vatican statement and reminded the Church that the protection of children should be of the utmost importance for Church and State.

The Vatican has denied that it interfered in how clerical sex abuse allegations were handled in the Cork diocese of Cloyne.

Gilmore has studied the reply from the Holy See and has said that aspects of the response from Rome "should not be allowed to obscure the obligation for abuse to be detected and reported."

He added: “Some of the argumentation put forward by the Holy See was very technical and legalistic.

“The government’s concerns were never about the status of church documents but rather about the welfare of children.

“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.”

According to reports on Sunday, Gilmore also rejected the Vatican’s claim that a 1997 letter from the then Papal Nuncio regarding the interpretation of a so-called Framework Document for dealing with allegations of sexual abuse in the church could be open to "misinterpretation, giving rise to understandable criticism."

“I remain of the view that the 1997 letter from the then Nuncio provided a pretext for some to avoid full cooperation with the Irish Civil authorities,” said Gilmore.

“The sense of betrayal which was felt by Irish people about this matter, and which was clearly expressed by the Taoiseach, came about not only because of the nature of child abuse itself but also because of the unique position which the Catholic Church enjoyed in this country, manifested in many ways, over many decades.”

The Vatican has stated that it wants to continue dialogue with the Irish government about the issues raised in the Cloyne Report. Gilmore welcomed this stance.

“We will work to progress the Holy See’s wish to continue dialogue and cooperation about the issues raised by the Cloyne report, above all with a view to promoting child welfare and ending the appalling scourge of clerical abuse,” said Gilmore.

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31 Comments

15 - 31 | See all comments

helmet365 | Sep 06, 2011, 04:51 AM EDT
Last post should read Enda Kenny

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helmet365 | Sep 06, 2011, 12:46 AM EDT
Edna Kenny is a hero, up there with Nelson Mandela standing up to the Vatican and saying what we have been thinking. I say Leonardo DiCaprio should play the part of Edna in the film of his life to be made when this saga is completed.

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tocon1941 | Sep 05, 2011, 09:30 PM EDT
Good man that Enda Kenny. If stays true and strong on this issue the servants of the Vatican will slink away into the dark. They prey on the week and the innocent. Strong men and women and the light of day will best them.

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McNamara31 | Sep 05, 2011, 02:10 PM EDT
Enda Kenny is doing “the job” that should have been done back in Boston 2002. The Catholic Church needs a big broom to sweep out the criminals and enablers for once and for all. Enda Kenny may be that very broom. Catholics should ask...Would Christ have done or expected less?

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RichardP | Sep 05, 2011, 11:04 AM EDT
"No man can serve two masters.." so the struggle becomes which one will the priesthood choose? If it is the Vatican they should be stripped of their Irish citizenship and required to apply for immigration into Ireland. If it is Ireland then that citizenship requires they obey the laws of Ireland over those of the Vatican wherever conflict arises. The only way the Catholic church in Ireland is ever going to be accepted again is for the front-line priests and curates to overthrow the hierarchy. The Archbishops, Cardinals, Bishops and other hierarchy have devoted their lives to serving the Vatican, not their congregations, not God, not Jesus and certainly the true spirit and doctrines of Christianity. I was thinking of Sharia Law before I read CaptainCon's accurate analysis of this appalling lack of care by the RCC hierarchy and I fully agree with his assessment. If someone told you today of an organization dominated by miserable old men, all dressed in black, who prefer women covered from head to toe and always subservient to men, where sex is a sin (especially if you enjoy it) will DICTATE to you how you will think and behave in every aspect of your life and think they are more important than the civil government - you'd think of Islamic fundamentalist extremists. Think again

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Rayosun | Sep 05, 2011, 10:00 AM EDT
So long as the vast majority of Catholics remain powerless cogs in their church, they can't be held responsible for what the few who DO HAVE POWER in their church do. BUT, this isn't the "dark ages". Why should adults want to remain in an institution that requires that they be forever treated like children, whose ONLY function will always be to "pay and pray"? See my http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ site.

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JuneAnnette | Sep 04, 2011, 10:51 PM EDT
eiriamach, as you have said: “This is absolute monarchy defending its divine right absolutely, not an organization open to change or reform.” ***Thomas Doyle agrees: “The institutional Catholic Church is essentially a monarchy. The pope has absolute power. All real leadership roles in the Church are held by celibate, male clerics. There may be a smattering of lay people, men and women, here and there but they have no power and the way things are going these days with the frenzied rush backwards into the 1950’s, those few lay people who have jobs may well find themselves on the outside looking in.”***Source: RichardSipe.com / Article: 'More Reflections from 25 Years of Experience'/March 10, 2010

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JuneAnnette | Sep 04, 2011, 10:43 PM EDT
eiriamach . . Collette2 . . RELATED: Source: The Irish Times online / Article: 'It takes 25 pages and 11,000 words to say - 'nothing to do with us' /Date: Sept. 5, 2011***EXCERPT:An Irish bishop confirmed, on condition of anonymity, that he made a note at the time of his receipt of that 1997 letter in which he described it as “a mandate to conceal the crimes of a priest”.At the same Rosses Point meeting in 1998, the then archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell thumped a table in frustration as Cardinal Hoyos insisted it was Vatican policy to defend the rights of an accused priest above all.In 2001 Cardinal Hoyos wrote a letter to French bishop Pierre Pican praising him for not passing information about an abuser priest to police. Bishop Pican received a suspended sentence for failing to report the priest who was sentenced to 18 years for the repeated sexual assault of boys over 20 years, and the rape of one of them. Cardinal Hoyos wrote to Bishop Pican: “I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest.”

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Collette2 | Sep 04, 2011, 10:12 PM EDT
eiriamach, your 9:13 comment has hit the nail right on the head,re "the right to a good name". Canon 275.1 among others states: Since all clerics are working for the same purpose building up the body of Christ, they are to be united with one another in the bond of brotherhood and prayer. They are to seek to cooperate with one another, in accordance with the provisions of particular law. This Canon is the codification of some teaching of Vatican 11. They are bound together by an intimate sacramental brotherhood forming one priestly body in the diocese under their own bishop.

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eiriamach | Sep 04, 2011, 09:41 PM EDT
JuneAnnette, I'm rethinking what I wrote last week about giving reform a chance. Reading the Vatican response to the Taoiseach, I was amazed at the strident tone of its insistence that it is divinely structured and cannot change. The response gives "the Holy See's view regarding cooperation between Church and civil authorities." In a dramatic conclusion to his speech to the Dáil, Enda Kenny had quoted Cardinal Josef Ratzinger: "Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church," and Kenny had concluded, "the conduct which the Church deems appropriate to itself, cannot and will not, be applied to the workings of democracy and civil society in this republic." On page 16, the Vatican says that the Taoiseach misused this quotation from then-Prefect Ratzinger, who wrote the quoted words in his "Donum Veritatis," on the work of theologians. "Donum Veritatis" is not concerned with "the manner in which the Church should behave within a democratic society nor with issues of child protection." The context of the quotation is a passage asserting that the Church's hierarchical structure is "in accordance with the will of her founder." It states that this structure gives bishops authority to handle child abuse allegations within their jurisdictions. It suggests that politicians like Kenny will not subject bishops to a democratic will, while it also insists that its canon law is compatible with Ireland's civil law on handling of child abuse accusations. This is absolute monarchy defending its divine right absolutely, not an organization open to change or reform.

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eiriamach | Sep 04, 2011, 09:13 PM EDT
Officially, the Vatican tells bishops to obey civil law in handling child abuse charges, but warns them to do no more than civil law requires. According to the Vatican's response to Enda Kenny, "Turning to the question of the canonical difficulties alluded to by the Congregation for the Clergy [AB Storero's 1997 letter to the Irish bishops] ... since both canon and civil law hold ... that everyone has a right to his or her good name and that an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, both ... rightly insist on ... due process and respect for the basic rights of all" [pg10]. It was this consideration, the "good name" of the accused, that the Vatican claims AB Storero had in mind when he warned the bishops that their mandatory reporting guideline conflicted with canon law. Mandatory reporting, presumably, would expose an accused priest to being named and the accusation against him discussed in the news media. If a church trial subsequently found him guilty and dismissed him, the Vatican could reverse the dismissal because his "good name" had not been protected. The Vatican claims that AB Storero was trying to help the bishops by cautioning them against a procedure --mandatory reporting-- that would undermine their efforts to fight child abuse by leaving grounds for reversal of their verdicts! Although admitting that the letter "expressed reservations about mandatory reporting," the Vatican also claims that no bishop is forbidden by canon law "from reporting cases of abuse to the civil authorities." "[T]he Holy See expected the [Cloyne] Diocesan authorities to act in conformity with Irish civil law" [15], which it takes pains to point out had no mandatory reporting requirement at that time. In other words, canon law, not conscience, prevails. An Edifying read!

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JuneAnnette | Sep 04, 2011, 08:24 PM EDT
"It is the source of the conviction held by many, including top-level Vatican officials, that the legal systems of secular society are subordinate to Canon law, the Catholic Church’s own system of governance."***Quote ascribed to Thomas Patrick Doyle /Article: THE POPE, THE CHURCH & SEXUAL ABUSE: A PERSPECTIVE by Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C. / Date: April 1, 2010***Thomas Patrick Doyle is a Dominican priest with a doctorate in canon law and five separate master's degrees, who sacrificed a rising career at the Vatican Embassy to become an outspoken advocate for church abuse victims.

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Collette2 | Sep 04, 2011, 05:37 PM EDT
All power to you Enda Kenny: and all those in positions of power, lovers of the land of Ireland and justice. As a practicing Catholic, you have the duty of care for all Gods children, whereby those given the responability by virtue of their calling to represent and serve him have failed dismally. The eyes of the world are on you.

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JudyJones | Sep 04, 2011, 04:05 PM EDT
We doubt that Irish victims, citizens, or the prime minster we asking the Vatican for a long litany of explanations about their canon laws. What does that have to do with taking accountability or protecting children? Ireland wants the Vatican to take responsibility for their church leaders who commit sex crimes against children. Enda Kenny's speech was heard and applauded around the world. Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director,USA, 636-433-2511 snapjudy@gmail.com "Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests" and all clergy.

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JudyJones | Sep 04, 2011, 04:04 PM EDT
We doubt that Irish victims, citizens, or the prime minster we asking the Vatican for a long litany of explanations about their canon laws. What does that have to do with taking accountability or protecting children? Ireland wants the Vatican to take responsibility for their church leaders who commit sex crimes against children. Enda Kenny's speech was heard and applauded around the world. Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director,USA, 636-433-2511 snapjudy@gmail.com "Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests" and all clergy. http://www.snapnetwork.org/

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