Spokesman Hails a Good Result but Admits There Is a Long Way Still to Go, Paddy Agnew, The Irish Times, February 17, 2010

Spokesman Hails "a Good Result" but Admits "There Is a Long Way Still to Go"

By Paddy Agnew
The Irish Times
February 17, 2010

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0217/1224264628242.html

Cardinal Sean Brady with Bishop Joseph Duffy (left) and Bishop Denis Brennan arrive for their press conference at Vatican Radio yesterday after their meeting with Pope Benedict.

VATICAN: “CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN the bishops and the Pope have had a good result,” announced the Vatican’s senior spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, when briefing Irish reporters and the Vatican press corps yesterday on the outcome of the two-day meeting between the Irish bishops and Pope Bendict XVI.

Despite that “good result”, Fr Lombardi found himself on the defensive when asked about some of the potentially disappointing results of the meeting. Asked why the pope had not invited abuse survivors to Rome to meet him, Fr Lombardi said that such an initiative was not the prerogative of this meeting, adding: “Yes, there is no mention of this and I don’t think that this was a particular point of today’s meeting but the story does not end here, today.

“This is a long and complex process, this is only a step in that process. We are going to have a pastoral letter, there is a long way still to go.” Asked about the unwillingness of the papal nuncio in Ireland, Dr Giuseppe Leanza, to go before the Dail’s foreign affairs committee to answer questions linked to the Murphy commission report, Fr Lombardi said: “As for the nuncio, I am not an expert on the subject but I think we have to look at the rules that the nuncio must follow and maybe he is not allowed to go before a parliamentary commission. Perhaps this is not the practise for a papal nuncio to do this.”

In response to a question about the position of the Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan, whose resignation has been called for by various victims’ groups, Fr Lombardi said: “Resignations were not discussed on this occasion, that is another procedure. The case has to go before the Congregation of Bishops and then the pope can accept the resignation or not but this was not on the agenda . . . you should ask the Irish bishops about this but one thing is for sure, we cannot solve all problems at one meeting.”

Fr Lombardi said this meeting had been called to address a grave crisis in the Irish church, adding that the pope has urged the Irish bishops to be honest and courageous in handling the issue.

Asked if there was not an obvious contradiction between such a call for honesty and the failure of the Holy See to co-operate with the Murphy commission in 2006, Fr Lombardi replied: “The pope has done several things already, including his meeting with Archbishop Martin and Cardinal Brady last month, so he is doing something . . . In a meeting like this with 30 people participating, everyone had a chance to intervene and explain the main points from their perspective and this is an enriching thing. And I know that the pope has made a serious and strong input and the atmosphere was one of real communication . . . but you cannot expect to solve all the problems just like that.”

Asked for further details of the interventions by the Irish bishops, Fr Lombardi said that he could offer the media only a short summary since he had not himself attended the meeting.