Daily Mail
July 20, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016947/Irish-PM-Enda-Kenny-attacks-narcissism-Vatican-paedophile-priests-cover-up.html
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| Accusations: Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny |
Catholic Bishops flouted Irish law and were encouraged by the Vatican not to tell police about suspected paedophile priests, it has been claimed.
The astonishing accusations were made by Ireland's lawmakers in an unprecedented denunciation of the Holy See's influence in the predominantly Catholic country.
A motion accusing the Vatican of sabotaging the Irish bishops' 1996 decision to begin reporting suspected cases of child abuse to police was unanimously backed by the government and all opposition parties.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny denounced what he called 'the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism - and the narcissism - that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.'
He told lawmakers: 'This is not Rome. This is the Republic of Ireland 2011, a republic of laws.'
Kenny added that the church's leaders had repeatedly sought to defend their institutions at the expense of children and to 'parse and analyse' every revelation of church cover-up of crimes 'with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.'
The astonishing attack was the first time that Ireland's Parliament has publicly castigated the Vatican instead of local church leaders during the country's 17 years of paedophile-priest scandals.
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| Finger of blame: Tensions have flared this month between Ireland and the Vatican over the latter's refusal to cooperate with a decade of government-ordered investigations into the church's chronic concealment of child abuse |
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| Demands: The Pope has been asked for an official from the Vatican, which has yet to come |
The controversial revelations have eroded Catholic authority in a nation where the church still owns most schools and several hospitals, and state-run broadcasters still toll a twice-daily call to Catholic prayer.
Kenny also said the church's secretive canon laws had no place in Ireland and added that he expected the Vatican from now on to state explicitly it would expect all suspected cases of child abuse to be reported to the police immediately.
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| Convicted: Fathers Patrick Maguire, Harry Moore and Ivan Payne were just a few priests that were exposed and punished for abusing children |
Tensions have flared this month between Ireland and the Vatican over the latter's refusal to cooperate with a decade of government-ordered investigations into the church's chronic concealment of child abuse by its employees.
The latest report, published last week, pointed an official finger of blame at the Vatican.
A confidential 1997 Vatican letter instructed Irish bishops to handle child-abuse cases strictly under terms of canon law.
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| Cover-up: A diocese run by Bishop John Magee suppressed evidence of child rape and molestation |
It warned bishops that their 1996 child-protection policy, particularly its emphasis on the need to start reporting all suspected crimes to police, violated canon law.
Last week's report highlighted the Vatican letter's contents and concluded that they encouraged Irish bishops to maintain secrecy and ignore the new crime-reporting rules.
The judge-led investigation documented how one diocese in County Cork run by Bishop John Magee, a former private secretary to three popes, suppressed evidence of child rape and molestation as recently as 2009.
That year, the first investigation by a new Irish church-funded investigations unit exposed some of Magee's wrongdoing. Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation last year.
Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore last week summoned Pope Benedict XVI's ambassador to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, and demanded an official response from the Vatican that has yet to come.
Today's motion said the parliament 'deplores the Vatican's intervention, which contributed to the undermining of the child protection frameworks and guidelines of the Irish state and the Irish bishops.'
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