A top academic has warned that Roman Catholic "loyalty to the Pope" must
come second to enforcing British law, in the aftermath of the
paedophile priests scandal.Dr Kevin Egan told senior churchmen that the UK bishops' responsibility now lies with "the truth and the law" rather than their oath of loyalty to the papacy.
The Assistant Director of the Leadership and Pastoral Care Postgraduate Programme at All Hallows College, Dublin, made the claim at the annual Gradwell Lecture in Liverpool.
Dr Egan, who has worked with both victims and perpetrators of clergy sex abuse, said: "A bishop's primary loyalty is to the truth even if disclosure of that truth causes the institution to be discredited.
"Furthermore, loyalty to the Pope does not exempt one from one's duty as a citizen to comply with the law of the land and report allegations of abuse involving clergy to the civil authorities."
In Eire the sex abuse scandal dates back to the 1930s and spas more than five decades, affecting hundreds of thousands of children in pastoral care.
A 2,600-page report, published in 2009, claimed rape and molestation was "endemic" in Irish Catholic church-run industrial schools and orphanages.
In response to the report, released by the Catholic Church Commission on Child Sexual Abuse, last year Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter apologising for the abuse.
Speaking at Liverpool Hope University, Dr Egan said that, before the crisis, it would have been assumed that the Pope and Vatican congregations could be relied upon for clerical guidance.
However he added: "Now it seems that the Vatican is playing catch-up with local churches and national Episcopal conferences."
Referring to the handling of similar sex abuse scandals in America in the 1970s and 80s, Dr Egan said; "Bishops considered defending the church as an organization to be their main priority and this provided the rationale for their handling of allegations.
"Whatever the reasons behind the adopting of that strategy at the time, these have now been totally discredited.
"The attempts to protect the church from scandal were to contribute to the emergence of even greater scandal."
The academic also examined how the crisis had fundamentally changed the relationship between a priest and his bishop.
He added: "The bishop has had to learn how to implement child protection policies. Whereas once he was accountable to the Pope, he is now held accountable to civil authorities, to the media and not just to his priests but to the laity."
Dr Egan also highlighted that the church, which preaches forgiveness, had since been forced to ask for absolution.
He said: "Before one attempts to ask for forgiveness one must first learn to apologise. The church as an institution needs to ask for forgiveness and to apologise."