Abuse
victim and campaigner Andrew Madden said the publication of the
internal files on the late Fr Andrew Ronan had happened only after nine
years of legal wrangling and was incomplete.
“They spent nine years opposing the handover of this information; they are not changing at all,” he said.
Published
on the website of Vatican Radio on Wednesday, the files are part of
documentation the Holy See is due to turn over to US lawyers
representing an American man who says he was abused by the priest more
than 40 years ago.
The case is seen to have implications for the Vatican’s international exposure to clerical sex abuse claims.
Known
in court papers as John V Doe, he is seeking to hold the Vatican liable
for allegedly being abused by Ronan in 1965 or early 1966, when he was
aged 15 or 16.
The Vatican said the files proved that it had
learned of the accusations against Fr Ronan only in 1966, after the
alleged abuse had occurred.
Critics, however, have said the files are only a partial release.
In
a statement, John V Doe’s lawyer Jeff Anderson said the documents made
public were a “partial release of what the court has ordered” and the
Vatican had made no mention of “existing documents containing knowledge
of abuse in Ireland and the United States that Vatican protocols, issued
in 1922 and 1962, require to be forwarded to the Holy See.
“Indeed, the absence of these documents in the discovery would clearly raise more questions and concerns,” he said.
Mr Anderson is due to receive full discovery of documents today as ordered by the court.
Mr
Madden said the documents released related only to 1966 on and did not
cover the priest’s time in Tyrone and Chicago. As far as he was
concerned, regardless of what was proved in court, it was clear the
Vatican had been involved in the cover-up of the abuse.
“You
couldn’t have that extent of a cover-up from one side of the world to
the other without the Vatican being aware of it,” he said.
Survivor
Marie Collins said there was no point in being overly positive about
the files’ release.
“It took nine years of legal work to get them to do
this, so I’m not sure how significant it is.
“It could be a good
sign, but having said that, you never know with the Vatican what their
reason for doing things is, so there is no point in getting overly
positive about it.”
She said the Vatican should release all of the files
it had been asked for.
Deirdre Kenny, advocacy director for abuse
victims charity One in Four, also noted the Vatican had been compelled
to hand over documents.
The bigger question yet to be answered would be
whether the Vatican could come under the jurisdiction of a US court, she
said.
In a statement released with the documents, Vatican lawyer
Jeffrey Lena said they would help “calm down those people who are too
quick to make sensational and unfair comments without taking the time to
get an adequate understanding of the facts”.
He said later his
remarks were not a personal attack on Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who had
criticised the Vatican in a speech to the Dáil.