By Henry McDonald
The Guardian
July 25, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/25/vatican-ireland-child-abuse-row
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| The Vatican's recall of papal envoy Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza from Dublin follows Irish PM Enda Kenny's comments on the clerical abuse row. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA |
Relations between the Irish government and the Roman Catholic church reached a historic nadir on Monday when the Vatican recalled its ambassador to Dublin, claiming "excessive reactions" in the Republic to the clerical child sex abuse crisis.
The Vatican confirmed that papal nuncio, archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, was returning to Rome for discussions over a damning report published earlier this month that had accused the Catholic hierarchy of undermining the Irish church's own policy of reporting child abuse to the authorities.
His recall followed an unprecedented and blistering attack by the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, on the Vatican's role in the alleged cover-up of abuse in the County Cork diocese of Cloyne.
Vatican watchers claim that a recall is diplomatic speak for "showing displeasure" with some act of the host state and indicates a cooling in relations.
Since a historic denunciation of the Vatican in the Irish parliament last week, Kenny has become something of a hero-figure across the Republic. He received a standing ovation at a writers' summer school in County Donegal on Sunday when he said he had been "astounded" over the number of messages of support he had been given.
The Taoiseach's withering criticism of the Vatican is all the more historic given that his party, Fine Gael, has been traditionally the stoutest defender of the church's power and privilege in the Republic.
Kenny is a Catholic whose political base is rooted in Ireland's conservative, rural west.
Seeking to play down the diplomatic row between Dublin and the Vatican City on Monday night, the vice-director of the Vatican press office, Father Ciro Benedettini, said that the recall "should be interpreted as an expression of the desire of the Holy See for serious and effective collaboration with the Irish government".
But he added: "It denotes the seriousness of the situation and the Holy See's desire to face it objectively and determinately. Nor does it exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions."
Breaking with decades of deference to the Catholic hierarchy both at home and in Rome, Kenny told the Dáil last week that "the rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, in power, standing and reputation".
He stuck to his critical stance over the Vatican and the Cloyne report at the event on Sunday.
He said that it reflected the way Irish people felt about the Catholic Church's role in the clerical abuse scandal.
The deputy editor of the Irish Catholic claimed on Monday night that most Catholics in the Republic would back Kenny rather than the Vatican in this controversy.
Michael Kelly said: "I would expect that the diplomats in the Vatican's secretariat of state will have been extremely surprised by the tone of Enda Kenny's speech in the Dáil, but also by the widespread and positive public reaction to the speech."
He added: "Mr Kenny was, I believe, articulating the sense of exasperation that a lot of Irish people, not least Irish Catholics, have felt for too long about the church's disastrous inability to come to terms with this crisis."
Although Ireland's foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, said the recall of the papal nuncio was a matter for the Vatican alone, one of his cabinet colleagues described the move as "appropriate".
Joan Burton, the minister for social protection, said that it was very welcome if there was going to be "deep reflection in the Vatican" into the Cloyne and indeed other reports that found the church hierarchy both in Ireland and in Rome culpable of covering up abuse scandals.
The Vatican has always looked upon Ireland as being one of its most loyal nations that always toed the Holy See's line on moral and social issues.
When Joseph Walshe was appointed Irish ambassador to the Vatican in 1946, the future Pope Paul VI told him that "you are the most Catholic country in the world".
But although abortion on demand remains illegal and most citizens still describe themselves as Catholic, the Republic's population is more secular minded than at any time in Irish history with divorce legal, contraception widely available and church attendance numbers falling.
Kenny's once unthinkable assault on the Vatican's role in Ireland was prompted by the Cloyne report's conclusion that the Vatican stymied Irish church policy of informing the Garda Siochana about sex abuse allegations levelled at its priests.
Yvonne Murphy, the judge who headed the Cloyne investigation, hit out at the Vatican's description of 1996 guidelines for reporting abuse allegations as "merely a study document".
She said that this led to the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, feeling he could deviate from measures other bishops had established to protect children.
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