POLITICAL REACTION: THERE WOULD be no legal
exemption of priests from reporting evidence of child abuse obtained in
the confessional, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.
In the most
sharply critical language ever used by an Irish head of government in
relation to the Catholic Church, Mr Kenny said the Vatican’s approach as
revealed in the Cloyne report was “disgraceful”.
Asked if
Government legislation would override the secrecy of the confessional,
with priests being obliged to pass on evidence of child abuse obtained
in that context, Mr Kenny said: “The law of the land should not be
stopped by a crozier or by a collar, as we’ve often said before. In
fact, I think I am on record as being the first public representative to
say that bishops who were caught up in a situation where guilt applies
here should be subject to the law of the land.”
He hoped the
legislation to come from the Minister for Children and the Minister for
Justice would “underpin all of this to make it absolutely beyond any
doubt that in situations where these appalling activities took place
that they be reported and that the law of the land apply”.
He
added: “So, from that perspective, irrespective of the location or
circumstance of the persons involved, this, as the Minister [for
Children] said, is not about Ireland of long ago, it is about Ireland of
contemporary times.
“And it has now got to be dealt with and this
Government, in terms of our work in previous years dealing with soft
information and the rights of children in setting up a senior ministry
for children backed now by legislation from the Minister for Justice,
will see that that happens.”
Asked what the Government would say
to the Vatican on its record in relation to the report, Mr Kenny said:
“I think this is absolutely disgraceful that the Vatican took the view
that it did in respect of something that is as sensitive and as personal
with such long-lasting difficulties for persons involved.
“We thought we had seen the end of this with the other reports and what came out of them but this one is of most recent times.”
He
expected that Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore,
who met the papal nuncio yesterday, would “obviously speak very
directly” to the Vatican representative.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said that no one should be immune from the full rigours of the law in relation to the report.
Mr
Martin was speaking on Highland Radio in Letterkenny after meeting
Fianna Fáil members in Donegal to discuss the future role of the party.
He
said what was truly shocking about the abuses exposed in the report was
the absolute disregard for the national children’s guidelines and
reporting procedures that the bishops had signed.
Mr Martin said
reports had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions and he
didn’t want to pre-empt what the DPP may decide.
He added: “No one
should be immune from the full rigours of the law, particularly in
terms of endangering the young and vulnerable to harm and to abuse. The
full rigours of the law should be applied to everybody, irrespective of
status of station in life.”
He said that after the report on
Ferns, which exposed damage, abuse and hurt inflicted on children, the
report was “all the more damning” and there was a lack of engagement by
the Vatican.
Mr Martin said the church had put the “so-called name
and reputation of the institution” before children. “This is contrary,
totally, to the message of Christ,” he said.
Socialist Party TD
Clare Daly called on Mr Gilmore to expel the papal nuncio “as a minimal
response” to the Vatican’s role as highlighted in the report.
Her
party colleague Joe Higgins said: “The fact that these crimes were
perpetrated after 1996, by which time the church was supposed to have
had child protection measures in place in the wake of the Brendan Smyth
case, demonstrates that the public repentance by the hierarchy cannot be
taken at face value."