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	Church Versus State: Who Is Right and Who Is Wrong? By Andrew Madden Irish Independent September 5, 2011 http://www.independent.ie/national-news/holy-see-states-churchs-case-and-says-taoiseach-got-it-wrong-2866549.html THE Vatican's response to the Government's unprecedented attack on it following the publication of the Cloyne Report is detailed, forensic and exact. Some observers have complained it is too legalistic but how could it be otherwise when so much hinges on the relationship between canon law and civil law, and on the proper interpretation of canon law, when the attack on the Vatican by the Government concentrated so heavily on these things? When Taoiseach Enda Kenny launched that extraordinary attack on the Vatican in July he was reflecting public anger, but the attack was scattergun and, in places, wide of the mark -- and the Vatican's response lays this bare. The Government's attack rests mainly on the letter sent by the then papal nuncio to the Irish hierarchy in 1997, giving them the opinion of the congregation for the clergy concerning the Irish church's new child-protection guidelines. To the great anger of the Government, that letter described the guidelines as a "study document" and this seemed to rob the guidelines of any standing. But now we discover from the Vatican's response that this description was based largely on the Irish bishops' own view of their guidelines. Therefore, it wasn't the Vatican that reduced the standing of the guidelines, it was the bishops themselves. The Cloyne Report claimed the Vatican did not grant official approval (or 'recognitio') to the guidelines and this also undermined them. But now we learn the bishops never asked for official approval and therefore this criticism is also wide of the mark. It is true, of course, that the 1997 letter expressed reservations about mandatory reporting and this was unhelpful. But as the Vatican's response makes abundantly clear, the government of the day also had strong reservations about mandatory reporting. Indeed, it considered whether to introduce a mandatory reporting law and it rejected the idea, for reasons explained in the Dail by then Health Minister Michael Noonan. One reason was that a mandatory reporting requirement could rob a person who is innocent until proven guilty of their good name. So if the 1997 letter deserves such a strong attack due to its reservation concerning mandatory reporting, then so does the Government of the time, making it a true case of people in glass houses throwing bricks. The Vatican and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin have asked the Government to substantiate the claim by the Taoiseach that as recently as three years ago there was "an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic". In addition, the Vatican points out that the Taoiseach quoted a 20-year-old statement by the Pope wildly and unjustly out of context to wrongly give the impression that he was condoning, not co-operating with, the civil authorities. Notwithstanding its forensic nature, the Vatican's response is measured in tone, and while the Government does and will have issues with it, its response so far has also been measured. However, precisely because of its forensic nature, the response has put the ball well and truly back into the Government's court. Andrew Madden: Bishops are owed nothing after years of hiding abuse THOUGH it comes as no surprise, the statement from the Holy See this weekend is a technical, legalistic and carefully crafted document. It seeks to absolve the cardinals and bishops of the Vatican of any responsibility for the cover-up of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. That cover-up, of course, didn't just occur in Cloyne. Or Dublin. That culture of cover-ups, despite its horrendous consequences, is typical of a culture that existed throughout the Catholic Church for decades. And not just in Ireland. A grand-jury investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia reported in 2005 the strategies employed by Catholic hierarchy there to cover up the sexual abuse of children were so similar to tactics in other dioceses around the US that it amounted to the church having employed well-orchestrated strategies for decades to keep abusing priests in ministry while minimising the risk of scandal or legal liability. There are Vatican documents from 1962 and 2001 instructing bishops around the world to conduct investigations into allegations of child-sexual abuse in secret. In addition, there is the 1997 letter from the congregation of the clergy in the Vatican to the Irish bishops. This makes it very clear that reporting of any suspected sexual abuse of children to civil authorities gave rise to serious reservations and the Code of Canon Law must instead be followed. The Holy See's insistence that this letter did not serve to deter any bishops from reporting allegations to civil authorities is simply not true. What was newly revealed in the Holy See statement was that Irish bishops didn't take the child-protection guidelines any more seriously than the Vatican. We are told cardinals Daly and Connell understood the difference between a document of the Irish bishops' conference and a document of the Irish bishops' Advisory Committee on Child Sexual Abuse by Priests and Religious -- they could ignore the latter. But in 1996 they gave the impression that from then on, in all cases where known or suspected sexual abuse of a child had taken place, they would report it to the civil authorities. And now they seem to think the leader of our country owes them an explanation. In his speech, Enda Kenny spoke of an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry as little as three years ago. The Taoiseach was right to articulate the anger so many people in Ireland felt, not only about Vatican and Papal Nuncio non-co-operation with the Dublin and Cloyne inquiries, but also at attempts made by the Vatican to get the Government to instruct the Murphy Inquiry on how it should approach the Vatican. It should also be remembered the Cloyne Report tells there was no attempt to implement child-protection guidelines in that diocese until 2008. Catholic bishops are owed nothing. They should consider themselves lucky that the only reason many of them are not behind bars is because the disgusting and unforgivable acts they engaged in to conceal known child sexual abuse and protect abusers were not a criminal offence at the time.
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