Vatican Recalls Ambassador to Ireland over Abuse Report, by Rachel Donadio, New York Times, July 25, 2011

Vatican Recalls Ambassador to Ireland over Abuse Report

By Rachel Donadio
New York Times
July 25, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/world/europe/26church.html

Vatican recalls Ireland's Papal Nuncio

A general view of the Papal Nuncio's residence on Navan Road in Dublin

[See also our page providing links to the Cloyne report, the 1996 policy that the report says was not supported by the Vatican, and other relevant materials.]

ROME — In a deepening standoff, the Vatican has recalled its ambassador to Ireland following the release of an Irish government report that the Vatican had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sex abuse to the police, the Holy See said Monday.

In a statement issued Monday, the Vatican cited "the reactions that ensued" following the publication of the report.

The Vatican's decision to recall Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza follows the release on July 13 of the report, which found that clergy in the rural Irish diocese of Cloyne did not act on complaints against 19 priests from 1996 to as recently as 2009. More damningly, it said that the Vatican had encouraged bishops to ignore child-protection guidelines adopted by Irish bishops in 1996 that included "mandatory reporting" of abuse to civil authorities.

A spokesman for the Vatican said that recalling a nunzio, the church's equivalent of an ambassador, was a rare move that "denoted the seriousness of the situation," as well the Holy See's "will to deal with it with objectivity and determination."

The spokesman, Rev. Ciro Benedettini, told reporters on Monday that Archbishop Leanza would return to Rome to consult with Vatican officials who are preparing the Holy See's official response to the Irish government, but added that the decision "does not exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions."

Eamon Gilmore, the deputy prime minister who called the papal nuncio to a meeting last week to demand a formal response from the Vatican on the findings of the Cloyne report, commented cautiously on the move.

"The decision to recall the papal nuncio to the Vatican for consultations is a matter for the Holy See," he said Monday afternoon. "The government is awaiting the response of the Holy See to the recent report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne and it is to be expected that the Vatican would wish to consult in depth with the Nuncio on its response."

The report caused a firestorm in the majority Catholic country, where for first time Irish lawmakers aimed their ire at the Vatican directly, and not at local church leaders.

In unprecedented remarks, Prime Minister Enda Kenny last week denounced "the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism, and the narcissism, that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day." Last week the Irish parliament also passed a motion decrying the Vatican's role in "undermining child protection frameworks."

The Cloyne Report, by an independent investigative committee led by judge Yvonne Murphy, is the fourth such report into aspects of the pedophilia scandal since 1994, when the Irish government fell over the state's failure to confront a known pedophile priest.

In 2009, a government report detailed sexual abuse and a cover-up by clergy in Ireland, and another chronicled the sexual, emotional and physical abuse of orphans and foster children in church-run residential schools — shaking the Irish church to its core.

But the Cloyne Report was the first to point its finger directly at the Vatican, not only at local clergy. It said that the Vatican had not recognized child protection guidelines issued in 1996 by Irish bishops. It cited a confidential letter by a former Vatican ambassador to Ireland who said the child-protection policies violated canon law and dismissed them as "a study document."

The report said that letter "effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures" and "gave comfort and support" to priests who "dissented from the stated Irish church policy."

The Cloyne Report also found that two allegations against one priest were reported to the police, but that there was no evidence of any subsequent inquiry. It singled out Bishop John Magee, the bishop of Cloyne from 1987 until his resignation last year, for not acting on allegations of abuse.

Bishop Magee, who had previously served as private secretary to Popes Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II, last week issued a "sincere apology," but did not accept direct responsibility for covering up the abuse.

After the report was issued, Ireland's minister for children, Frances Fitzgerald, said the "most horrifying" aspect of the report was that "This is not a catalogue of failure from a different era — this is about Ireland now."

In an effort to address the sex abuse crisis in Ireland, last year, Pope Benedict XVI sent a pastoral letter to the church in Ireland, accepted the resignations of some bishops, including Bishop Magee, and ordered an investigation of Irish seminaries and several dioceses. The investigation, called an "apostolic visitation," was led by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York. Its findings have not been made public.