British Archbishop Who Claimed Diplomatic Immunity to Avoid Handing Documents to Paedophile Investigators Is Promoted to Third Highest Role in Vatican by the Pope
By Jenny Awford
A British archbishop, appointed by Pope Francis as his new foreign minister, claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid handing over Vatican documents to prosecutors investigating two paedophile priests. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, 60, from Liverpool was promoted on Saturday to the third highest position in the Vatican as part of a reshuffle by Francis. But the appointment of the former papal envoy to Australia to the Vatican's most senior hierarchy will be a blow for campaigners against clerical sex abuse. Earlier this year the United Nations said it was 'concerned' after Mr Gallagher cited diplomatic immunity in response to repeated requests by prosecutors for documents on two priests that abused more than 100 children over 40 years. A report by the UN Committee against Torture reported that the Holy See was still 'resisting the principle of mandatory reporting of allegations to civil authorities', and withholding information, citing Gallagher by name. Only after months of bureaucratic wrangling and an embarrassing diplomatic standoff did the Archbishop eventually agree to turn over some of the documents which were wanted as part of an inquiry into Australia's worst abuse scandal. The Maitland-Newcastle diocese has been described as the country's 'epicentre' of Catholic clerical abuse with 400 known victims. Gallagher was asked for information on Father Denis McAlinden, an Irish priest who preyed on pre-pubescent girls was known to the church as a paedophile since the 1970s but for decades he was moved from parish to parish in Australia and posted overseas to New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. He was eventually defrocked in a secret process in exchange for 'keeping his good name'. The documents requested also referred to Father James Fletcher, who was convicted of abusing four victims over three decades including the rape of an altar boy, a crime for which he was sentenced to almost eight years prison, where he died in 2006. Copies of correspondence released by the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry show prosecutors requested documents from Gallagher on 30 August 2013. The nuncio sent an interim response, stating that he was submitting the request to Rome but after no response almost two months later the prosecutors were forced to write again to both Gallagher and the Vatican to follow up the request.
Three weeks later Gallagher eventually replied reminding the commissioner that his office was 'the high diplomatic representative of the Holy See to the Commonwealth' and cited 'the protections afforded by international agreements, including the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations'. The convention states that the archives and documents of a diplomatic mission 'shall be inviolable at any time and wherever they may be'. Without this 'high principle of international relations' 'diplomatic missions would no longer be able freely to carry out their domestic and international responsibilities', he claimed.
He said his office would consider 'specific requests' for information, 'bearing in mind the expectation that it would not be appropriate to seek internal communications'. On 14 November the NSW crown solicitor, Ian Knight, wrote to Gallagher for a third time. In his letter Knight reminded the nuncio of a guarantee by Cardinal George Pell that 'every document the Vatican had' would be made available to a separate inquiry into child sexual abuse in the same year. 'Of course, this Commission is separate and distinct from both the Royal Commission and the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry,' Knight wrote, ' 'But I trust that the sentiment of co-operation would similarly extend to this Commission's processes.' Eventually on 6 December 2013 Gallagher forwarded copies of correspondence between the Bishop of Maitland?Newcastle and the then Nuncio, as well as other letters, which the commission already had copies of. But he declined to forward any 'internal communications', between the Vatican diplomatic missions in Australia and in the Philippines saying 'Such communications are confidential, as is the case for those of the diplomatic missions of any country.' Gallagher was appointed following the demotion of ultra-conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has led open opposition to Pope Francis' leadership saying the church is 'without a rudder'.
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