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	One Last Chance for the Vatican to Come Clean University Times January 25, 2011 http://www.universitytimes.ie/?p=182 Amid less turbulent political circumstances, the Would You Believe documentary that was shown on RTÉ1 on Monday, 17th January last would have received far more attention than it did. It was an excellent piece of investigative journalism. The programme revealed a previously undisclosed letter that was written to Ireland's Catholic bishops in January 1997 by the then papal nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Luciano Storero. In the letter, Archbishop Storero, who is now deceased, expressed the 'serious reservations' of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy about the Irish church's 1996 Child Sex Abuse framework document. In particular, the Archbishop wrote that 'mandatory reporting' to civil authorities of clerical sex abuse cases 'gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature'. While many have previously suspected that the Holy See encouraged bishops not to report abuse cases to the police, this is the first time that a document expressing such a view has come to light publically. While Dr. Storero's letter does not excuse the Irish bishop's from their failure to report crimes to the Gardaí, it does shed light on the internal politics of the situation and the conflict that the bishops faced. On the one hand, the bishops had a duty to report a crime in the same way as any sensible person with any sort of conscience would do. However, at the same time they were receiving conflicting instructions from their superiors in Rome, who they were sworn to obey. The letter also portrays a very different view of the role of the Holy See in dealing with the abuse crisis from that which Pope Benedict wrote about in his Pastoral Letter to Ireland's Catholics last year. In his letter, the Pope reprimanded the Irish bishops for 'grave errors of judgement' and 'failures of leadership'. The Pope said that the bishops had 'failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse'. In other words, the cover up occurred because the procedures of church law had not been followed. Of course, we now know that the situation was not as clear as Benedict implied and that, at best, the Irish bishops were receiving contradictory messages from Rome on how to respond. At worst, they were encouraged by Rome to cover up abuse. Given that the letter revealed by RTÉ was leaked by an unnamed Irish bishop, it appears that the bishops here were unimpressed with the manner in which the Pope laid the blame squarely at their door in his letter. The Irish State can not ignore the revelation of this letter, particularly since it follows from the refusal of the Apostolic Nunciature to cooperate with releasing files to the Murphy Commission investigating abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. Following the publication of the Murphy report, the Papal Nuncio was summoned to meet then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin. The meeting was a diplomatic ticking off but it is unclear what practical effect it had. On this occasion, the new minister – who also happens to be the Taoiseach -should summon the nuncio to instruct him to hand over any files relating to abuse that may be in his possession or in the possession of the Holy See. If the nuncio or his Vatican superiors refuse to cooperate, the nuncio should be regarded as the representative of a hostile foreign government perverting the course of justice in Ireland. Of course, it need not come to this. Even at this belated point, there is still an opportunity for the Holy See to do what it has shown itself to be entirely unwilling to do at every point so far: voluntarily cooperate and provide full transparency and accountability. Rome would do well to remember the words of the Gospel it itself preaches: "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; nor hid, that shall not be known." (Luke 12:2)
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