BishopAccountability.org
	Vatican Must Engage More Meaningfully By Editor Saturday Southern Star September 15, 2011 http://www.southernstar.ie/article.php?id=2922 THE Vatican has made its long-awaited ‘measured response’ to remarks made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny in early July criticising its attitude to the Murphy investigation into the handling of complaints about clerical child sex abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne between 1996 and 2009 and its general approach to such vile abuse over the years, especially where canon law was invoked to try to frustrate the law of the land. Unfortunately, it contained large elements of splitting hairs about specifics and did not adequately allay the widespread fears and concerns most Irish people harbour about the Holy See’s perceived reticence in dealing decisively with clerics who abuse children. While the Taoiseach’s speech was dismissed by some as ‘megaphone diplomacy,’ he was reflecting the frustrations of Irish people with the Vatican’s efforts to distance itself from invesigations into the misdeeds and failings of a minority of senior clerics in the church’s Irish branch. Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, then Papal Nuncio to Ireland, telling the Murphy commission of investigation that he could not assist its work because the nunciature ‘does not determine the handling of cases of sexual abuse in Ireland and therefore is unable to assist you in this matter’ was nothing short of a calculated insult to the Irish authorities. It, effectively, amounted to a form of hindering of the inquiry, despite what the Vatican said in its statement last week. We wrote here at the time of the Taoiseach’s seminal speech in July that, rather than becoming all precious about it, the Vatican needed to find the humility to take the speech as a well-meant wake-up call from Ireland, if it wanted to begin repairing the serious reputational damage it has suffered in recent years. Unfortunately, its response had more than a touch of indignation about it and did not, for us, have an adequate conciliatory tone, or give the impression that the Holy See had got off its proverbial high horse. In the Vatican’s favour, it has to be said that it obviously took the Taoiseach’s criticisms seriously and gave much consideration to what he stated in his July speech before if it saw fit to flatly reject the main thrust of it. Enda Kenny was speaking, not only as leader of this country, but also as a somewhat disillusioned practicing catholic. It is a pity, therefore, that the Vatican’s response was so officious, failing once again to empathise properly with the Irish people, whose trust it needs to start regaining if the Roman Catholic Church is to have any hope of commanding the respect it enjoyed here for many centuries. It would be naive of them to think that they will ever again be given such unquestioning loyalty, so engaging meaningfully with their flock on the ground, and with sovereign governments through diplomatic channels, is what they have to do – and do so willingly – as their efforts to date have fallen well short.
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