The Vatican on Saturday acknowledged “grave failures” in handling a child sex abuse scandal involving priests in southern Ireland as Dublin insisted the Holy See helped block investigations.
In its long-awaited response to an official report commissioned by the Irish government, the Vatican expressed deep concern at the findings and “abhorrence” at the crimes committed.
“The Holy See is deeply concerned at the findings of the commission of inquiry concerning grave failures in the ecclesiastical governance of the diocese of Cloyne,” the Vatican said in its official response to the report.
Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore acknowledged the Vatican’s statement, but maintained that a 1997 letter from the then Papal envoy in Dublin “provided a pretext for some to avoid full cooperation with the Irish civil authorities.”
The Vatican Under-Secretary for Relations with States Ettore Balestrero handed the response on Saturday to the Irish Deputy Ambassador to the Vatican Helena Keleher.
The July publication of the report into more than a decade of abuse by priests in Cloyne sparked outrage in the Irish government and triggered an unprecedented attack by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who called the Roman Catholic Church’s behavior “absolutely disgraceful.”
“I acknowledge the declaration by the Holy See that it is ‘sorry and ashamed’ for the terrible suffering of victims of child abuse in Ireland and their families,” Gilmore said in a statement on Saturday.
“However, some of the argumentation advanced by the Holy See in its response is very technical and legalistic. The government’s concerns were never about the status of church documents, but rather about the welfare of children,” he said.
Irish Cardinal Sean Brady welcomed the Vatican statement, describing it as “carefully prepared and respectfully presented.”
“The reply conveys the -profound abhorrence of the Holy See for the crime of sexual abuse and its sorrow and shame for the terrible sufferings which the victims of abuse and their families have endured within the Church of Jesus Christ, a place where this should never happen,” Brady said.
While Pope Benedict XVI last year wrote a letter to Irish Catholics expressing shame and remorse over the abuse of children by members of the clergy, campaigners say the Church has been guilty of a cover-up.
In its statement on Saturday, the Vatican denied it had tried to block inquiries by the Irish authorities.
“The Holy See wishes to make it quite clear that it in no way hampered or sought to interfere in any inquiry into child sexual abuse in the diocese of Cloyne,” it said.
The official report condemned the Church’s handling of abuse claims against 19 clerics in Cloyne, County Cork, between 1996 and 2009, saying it was “inadequate and inappropriate.”
The report was strongly critical of the failures of the former bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, who had been private secretary to three successive popes — Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II.
It said Magee, who resigned last year, had “to a certain extent detached himself from the day-to-day management of child abuse cases.”
In language never before used by an Irish leader, an outraged Kenny later told parliament that the Church’s inability to deal with the child-sex cases showed a culture of “dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism” at the Vatican.
The Vatican subsequently recalled its envoy to Ireland in order to formulate an official response.
The Cloyne case is only the latest in a series of abuse scandals for the Catholic Church in Ireland that were first exposed in a 2009 report detailing hundreds of cases of sexual abuse of children by priests going back decades.
Church leaders in Ireland have also expressed outrage over the findings of the report. Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said in July that “great damage has been done to the credibility” of the Church.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was