The Irish embassy to the Holy See offered to act as an "intermediary"
between the Murphy commission and the Vatican as a major diplomatic row
intensified, but neither side took up the offer, it has emerged.
As the government braces itself for the imminent release by
WikiLeaks of hundreds more US diplomatic cables that refer to Ireland, a
confidential US embassy cable released by the WikiLeaks website also
reveals that the Irish ambassador to the Vatican and former ambassador
to the USA, Noel Fahey, described the row between the commission and the
Vatican as the "most difficult crisis he had ever managed".
WikiLeaks is believed to have around another 900 cables emanating
from the US embassy in Dublin, with 300 or so more from the US
consulate in Belfast. It is expected to release these in the coming
months, as it works its way through more than 250,000 such cables which
it has obtained.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it had no comment on the content of the cable.
Dated 26 February 2010 and noted as having been "contributed to
and cleared" by the US embassy in Dublin, it outlines how the Irish
government "wanted to be seen as cooperating with the investigation
because its education department was implicated, but did not want to
insist that the Vatican answer the requests because they had come
outside of regular channels.
"The Irish embassy to the Holy See offered to facilitate better
communications between the Irish commission and the Holy See, but
neither party took any further action," it stated. "In the end, the
Irish government decided not to press the Vatican to reply, according to
Fahey's deputy…. (she said) the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith probably did not have much to add to the inquiry."
Commenting on the WikiLeaks revelations yesterday, Maeve Lewis of
the One in Four charity revealed that she has yet to receive "even an
acknowledgement" from the pope after her organisation wrote directly to
him about the issue last February. This is despite that they had used
proper diplomatic channels to do so. But the US diplomatic cables
"simply confirmed what we already knew," she said.
"We have always said it was shameful for the Vatican not to
cooperate with the Murphy commission, as is its ongoing refusal to
divulge the contents of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
documents in relation to clerical sex abuse worldwide," she added.
Requests for information from the Murphy commission "offended
many in the Vatican" who felt the government had "failed to respect and
protect Vatican sovereignty during the (commission) investigations", the
cable also reports.
Elsewhere, it claimed Vatican officials also believed Irish
opposition politicians were making "political hay" from the situation by
publicly urging the government to demand a reply from the Vatican
following publication of the Murphy report in November 2009.
SIC: ST/IE