Vatican Recalls Irish Ambassador, Lez Get Real, July 25, 2011

Vatican Recalls Irish Ambassador

Lez Get Real
July 25, 2011

http://lezgetreal.com/2011/07/vatican-recalls-irish-ambassador/

The Vatican has recalled its envoy to Ireland following accusations that the Vatican stymied efforts by Catholic bishops to report clerical sex abuse cases to Irish authorities.

A statement released this morning on the Vatican Web site and Vatican Radio , says that Leanza has now been recalled to Rome for "consultations."

The press release states :

"Following the publication on 13 July, of the Irish government's Commission of Inquiry Report into allegations of abuse of minors by clergy of the diocese of Cloyne, otherwise known as the 'Cloyne Report' and, in particular, the reactions that have followed, the Secretary of State has recalled the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, HE Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza for consultations".

The Vatican said the principal aim was for direct consultations to prepare the Holy See's official response but the measure "does not exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions," said deputy spokesman the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, answering questions from reporters.

The Vatican also later acknowledged that the recall of an ambassador was a measure rarely adopted by the Holy See, underlining the "seriousness of the situation."

Two weeks ago, Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore summoned the Vatican Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanz, to demand an official response from the Vatican over a confidential 1997 Vatican letter that instructed Irish bishops to handle child-abuse cases strictly under terms of canon law , that warned Irish Bishops that their 1996 child-protection policy, particularly its emphasis on the need to start reporting all suspected crimes to police, violated canon law.

After that meeting, the Vatican has said it would issue a response to those accusations at the "opportune time", but has not done so yet.

Then last Wednesday, in an unprecedented denunciation of the Holy See's influence in the predominantly Catholic country, the Irish government and all opposition parties unanimously backed a motion accusing the Vatican of sabotaging the Irish bishops' 1996 decision to begin reporting suspected cases of child abuse to police.

Archbishop Leanza and his predecessor, Archbishop Lazzarotto were mentioned in last years Murphy Report on abuse of Irish children by predator priests and has been accused by several Irish officials of trying to hide the Vatican's role in the subsequent cover up of those crimes. That role has also prompted calls from some Irish politicians for Leanza's expulsion from Ireland.

"This is not Rome. This is the Republic of Ireland 2011, a republic of laws," Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers.

Kenny then denounced what he called "the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism – and the narcissism – that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day," and added, the church's leaders had repeatedly sought to defend their institutions at the expense of children, and to "parse and analyze" every revelation of church cover-up of crimes "with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer."

Kenny also said Catholic canon law had "neither legitimacy nor a place in the affairs of this country." He pledged to move forward with new laws making it a crime to withhold evidence of child abuse – even if the information was attained during a priest's confession.