Irish Examiner
December 11, 2010
http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/ireland/wikileaks-vatican-forced-govt-to-grant-immunity-to-clergy-485290.html
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The latest documents published by the Wikileaks website suggest the Government was forced to grant Vatican officials immunity from testifying to Murphy commission.
Published in November last year, the Murphy report into the handling of clerical abuse allegations in the Dublin archdiocese accused four former archbishops and a host of clergy of a cover-up.
The report in today's Guardian newspaper claims the Vatican refused to allow its officials to testify before the Murphy Commission .
It details how the requests for information "offended many in the Vatican" who felt that the Irish Government had "failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations".
The cable suggests the Irish Government wanted "to be seen as co-operating with the investigation" because its own education department was implicated, but politicians were reluctant to press Vatican officials to answer the investigators' queries.
In the end the diplomatic cable suggests the Irish Governement was forced to grant Vatican officials immunity from testifying to the Murphy Commission.
Other leaked cables reveal the Vatican lobbied to keep Turkey out of the EU and argued for a ban on human cloning.
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