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	Colum Kenny: Vatican Lays Blame at Door of Local Church Irish Independent September 4, 2011 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/colum-kenny/colum-kenny-vatican-lays-blame-at-door-of-local-church-2866109.html The Holy See has failed to acknowledge it could have done more to halt sex abuse, writes Colum Kenny Yesterday's response by the Vatican to the Cloyne Report and to the Irish Government's criticism of Rome is at its most convincing when responding to some of what Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in the Dail. But it is weakest when trying to explain away its own opinion on guidelines that were adopted by Irish bishops to deal with sex abuse. The Vatican makes clear its condemnation of sex abuse as a crime, and points out that it has disciplined thousands of priests in recent years for sexual misconduct. But it lays the blame for what happened in Cloyne squarely at the doorstep of the local church in Cloyne. The 25-page statement contains no self-criticism of the role of Rome itself. The Vatican was clearly irritated by what it sees as an unfair use by Enda Kenny of a quotation from a document signed by Pope Benedict XVI before he became pontiff. Rome complains that the Taoiseach "made no attempt to substantiate" his allegation that the Holy See had attempted to frustrate inquiries into sex abuse by the sovereign, democratic, Irish republic "as little as three years ago". Rome claims strongly that such allegations are a lie ("belied" is the politer word used). Quite convincingly, the Vatican quotes a full paragraph from a document issued by Rome in 1990 from which Taoiseach Enda Kenny took just a sentence in his angry Dail speech on July 20 last. Rome does so to show that the present Pope was not then referring to the position of the Catholic Church in civil society but to the interior hierarchical structures of the Catholic Church itself. The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's statement that, "Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the church" was never intended to be a declaration of civil disobedience. The Vatican protests that it has developed guidelines in recent years that are adequate for dealing with the problem of sexual abusers within the church, once those guidelines are properly applied. It points to a local Irish failure to enforce such guidelines as the cause of the problem in Cloyne. And the Vatican goes to some length to justify in a legalistic fashion an opinion of Rome's Congregation for the Clergy that was conveyed to Ireland in 1997 as Irish bishops seemed to be adopting a united policy on child protection (known as the "framework document"). Many members of the public formed the impression that this framework was going to be enforced across all Irish dioceses. And Irish bishops at the time did little or nothing to dispel that illusion. However, the Vatican now reminds the public of something that the Sunday Independent has pointed out on a number of occasions in recent years. That is that the Catholic Church at the top is run in a direct line from the Pope to individual bishops who have great power to determine policy in their own dioceses so long as what they do is consistent with guidelines from Rome. The hierarchy in Maynooth ultimately has little power over individual bishops. It was always going to be the case that individual bishops might choose not to adopt or apply the framework document. But the Vatican claims that in Ireland, in fact, no bishop did reject the framework document and says that the Cloyne Report was simply incorrect in stating that the bishops sought official recognition for it from Rome. It was not a failure to adopt that policy document but a failure to enforce it on the ground that led to problems in the treatment of sex abuse complaints in Cloyne. The Vatican admits that a letter in which its papal nuncio in Ireland described the policy of the Irish bishops on abuse as "not an official document" was one that "could be open to misinterpretation". However, it spoils even this mild admission by adding that it could only be misinterpreted if "taken out of context". Coming from one of the world's most politically experienced organisations, this admission does not adequately respond to the real impact of such an intervention by the papal nuncio and the Congregation for the Clergy. And while defending the document from its Congregation of the Clergy that stated the correct position in canon law, Rome still leaves open the possibility that not every aspect of the framework document or of subsequent policies adopted by Irish bishops is necessarily compatible with the rights of an accused person in canon law. Although this document does not address head-on the issue of whether or not a priest in confession must report information about sexual abuse to the authorities, it does convincingly demonstrate that Rome's opposition to blanket mandatory reporting is shared by a majority of those who responded to an official Irish Government consultation on the matter. Yesterday's document quotes relevantly from Fine Gael ministers in an earlier Dail to support its position. The Vatican points out that over 200 submissions on mandatory reporting were received by the Government, including from representatives of the medical, social service, educational and legal areas, and the majority expressed reservations. In fact, it is still by no means clear that the Government's new rules on reporting will undermine the secrecy of the confessional as Justice Minister Alan Shatter's proposals already allow for reasonable exceptions. What the Vatican does not manage to do in yesterday's statement is to engage with the Irish experience in a way that acknowledges that it might have done more, or that Rome's intervention in respect of earlier guidelines from Irish bishops was damaging in practice while perhaps justified in principle.
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