Politicians have condemned the Catholic Church's handling of clerical
sex abuse in the wake of the publication of the Cloyne report.
Labour
TD for Cork East Seán Sherlock said the church had failed “every
practicing Catholic” by not following its own guidelines in protecting
children.
“The Cloyne report clearly concludes that the Bishop of
the day and another senior clergyman systematically failed to report
complaints to the Gardaí. This was in spite of the fact that there was a
clear indication given to senior members of the Church in Cloyne that
it was their duty and obligation to do so,” he said.
"The Bishop
abdicated his responsibility and in so doing re-victimised and added
further to the trauma endured by survivors and their families."
Mr
Sherlock said thanks to the bravery of survivors the State was now in a
position to ensure that child protection procedures and mandatory
reporting will become the norm.
Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
called on the Government to demand an “urgent and formal” diplomatic
meeting with the papal nuncio to account for the Vatican’s role.
“The
report finds that the Vatican gave individual Irish bishops the freedom
to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and
support to those who, like Monsignor O’Callaghan, dissented from the
stated official Irish Church policy," he said.
“This is a damning
indictment of the role of the Vatican. The Vatican is not just a Church
bureaucracy – it is a sovereign state with which the Irish State has
diplomatic relations.”
Mr Ó Caoláin also said the report
highlighted disagreements between the Office of the Minister for
Children and the HSE about the extent of the powers available to the
executive in relation to extra-familial abuse of children.
This is
“unacceptable” and must be addressed, he added.