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	Advice on Policies 'Was Not Invitation to Cover up Abuse' By Paddy Agnew Irish Times July 20, 2011 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0720/1224301010331.html VATICAN: THE VATICAN'S advice to the Irish bishops on their child protection policies cannot be interpreted as an invitation to cover up abuse cases, according to a senior Holy See spokesman. Making his first extended comment on the implications of the Cloyne report, spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said there was nothing in the advice given by the papal nuncio in 1997 to encourage bishops to break Irish laws. Fr Lombardi argued that the controversial letter from papal nuncio Luciano Storero in 1997 was grossly misinterpreted following publication of the report. Speaking on Vatican Radio, Fr Lombardi said the report "has once again highlighted the serious nature of things that happened, this time rather recently". In his address, he made no observation about the Bishop John Magee, or his handling of child protection policies in the diocese, which were heavily criticised in the report. The nuncio's 1997 letter delivered the reaction of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy to the child protection measures introduced by the Irish bishops a year earlier. The Cloyne report said the letter was "entirely unhelpful to any bishop who wanted to implement the agreed procedures". In the letter, the nuncio states: "In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature". This has been widely interpreted as an invitation to implement a "cover-up" and not to report cases of clerical child abuse to civil authorities. However, Fr Lombardi argues: "There is no good reason to understand that letter as an invitation to cover up abuse cases. In truth, it was pointed out that there was a risk that sanctions might be taken which could later be judged invalid or questionable from the canonical viewpoint, thus thwarting the very intentions . . . of the Irish bishops . . . There is absolutely nothing in the letter which could be seen as an invitation not to respect the laws of the land." In relation to mandatory reporting, Fr Lombardi said the "objections raised by the letter in relation to 'mandatory reporting' did not contradict any Irish law because there was no such law in Ireland at that time". "In that regard, the seriousness of certain accusations made against the Vatican is very curious. It is as if the Holy See was guilty of not having given validity in canon law to a measure which the State had not considered necessary to make valid in civil law. In wanting to attribute serious responsibility to the Holy See for that which happened in Ireland, such accusations seem to go some way beyond that which is contained in the report (which uses more balanced tones when attributing blame)." Fr Lombardi also claimed that the "framework document" sent by the bishops to Rome was not an "official document" but rather a report by the bishops' "advisory committee on child sexual abuse".
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