Saturday's response by the Vatican to the Cloyne Report and to the
Irish Government's criticism of Rome is at its most convincing when
responding to some of what Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in the Dail.
But it
is weakest when trying to explain away its own opinion on guidelines
that were adopted by Irish bishops to deal with sex abuse.
The
Vatican makes clear its condemnation of sex abuse as a crime, and points
out that it has disciplined thousands of priests in recent years for
sexual misconduct.
But it lays the blame for what happened in
Cloyne squarely at the doorstep of the local church in Cloyne.
The
25-page statement contains no self-criticism of the role of Rome itself.
The
Vatican was clearly irritated by what it sees as an unfair use by Enda
Kenny of a quotation from a document signed by Pope Benedict XVI before
he became pontiff.
Rome complains that the Taoiseach "made no
attempt to substantiate" his allegation that the Holy See had attempted
to frustrate inquiries into sex abuse by the sovereign, democratic,
Irish republic "as little as three years ago".
Rome claims strongly that
such allegations are a lie ("belied" is the politer word used).
Quite
convincingly, the Vatican quotes a full paragraph from a document
issued by Rome in 1990 from which Taoiseach Enda Kenny took just a
sentence in his angry Dail speech on July 20 last.
Rome does so to show
that the present Pope was not then referring to the position of the
Catholic Church in civil society but to the interior hierarchical
structures of the Catholic Church itself.
The then Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger's statement that, "Standards of conduct appropriate to civil
society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply
applied to the church" was never intended to be a declaration of civil
disobedience.
The Vatican protests that it has developed
guidelines in recent years that are adequate for dealing with the
problem of sexual abusers within the church, once those guidelines are
properly applied.
It points to a local Irish failure to enforce such
guidelines as the cause of the problem in Cloyne.
And the Vatican
goes to some length to justify in a legalistic fashion an opinion of
Rome's Congregation for the Clergy that was conveyed to Ireland in 1997
as Irish bishops seemed to be adopting a united policy on child
protection (known as the "framework document").
Many members of the
public formed the impression that this framework was going to be
enforced across all Irish dioceses.
And Irish bishops at the time did
little or nothing to dispel that illusion.
However, the Vatican
now reminds the public of something that the Sunday Independent has
pointed out on a number of occasions in recent years.
That is that the
Catholic Church at the top is run in a direct line from the Pope to
individual bishops who have great power to determine policy in their own
dioceses so long as what they do is consistent with guidelines from
Rome.
The hierarchy in Maynooth ultimately has little power over
individual bishops.
It was always going to be the case that
individual bishops might choose not to adopt or apply the framework
document.
But the Vatican claims that in Ireland, in fact, no bishop did
reject the framework document and says that the Cloyne Report was
simply incorrect in stating that the bishops sought official recognition
for it from Rome.
It was not a failure to adopt that policy document
but a failure to enforce it on the ground that led to problems in the
treatment of sex abuse complaints in Cloyne.
The Vatican admits
that a letter in which its papal nuncio in Ireland described the policy
of the Irish bishops on abuse as "not an official document" was one that
"could be open to misinterpretation".
However, it spoils even this mild
admission by adding that it could only be misinterpreted if "taken out
of context".
Coming from one of the world's most politically
experienced organisations, this admission does not adequately respond to
the real impact of such an intervention by the papal nuncio and the
Congregation for the Clergy.
And while defending the document from
its Congregation of the Clergy that stated the correct position in
canon law, Rome still leaves open the possibility that not every aspect
of the framework document or of subsequent policies adopted by Irish
bishops is necessarily compatible with the rights of an accused person
in canon law.
Although this document does not address head-on the
issue of whether or not a priest in confession must report information
about sexual abuse to the authorities, it does convincingly demonstrate
that Rome's opposition to blanket mandatory reporting is shared by a
majority of those who responded to an official Irish Government
consultation on the matter.
Saturday's document quotes relevantly from
Fine Gael ministers in an earlier Dail to support its position.
The
Vatican points out that over 200 submissions on mandatory reporting
were received by the Government, including from representatives of the
medical, social service, educational and legal areas, and the majority
expressed reservations.
In fact, it is still by no means clear that the
Government's new rules on reporting will undermine the secrecy of the
confessional as Justice Minister Alan Shatter's proposals already allow
for reasonable exceptions.
What the Vatican does not manage to do
in its statement is to engage with the Irish experience in a way
that acknowledges that it might have done more, or that Rome's
intervention in respect of earlier guidelines from Irish bishops was
damaging in practice while perhaps justified in principle.