The Catholic Church appears to have plundered some of the Ten Commandments in its efforts to protect its own officers and power.
When I was growing up, the Ten Commandments were considered to be the most important thing to learn and we were held accountable in confession for how we practised them.
So we silently knelt and rehearsed for confession, using the commandments as a template.
But it would appear that only the lowly, the plebs, paid attention to the tablets which were handed down to Moses.
The Vatican and some clergy clearly deemed them 'a study document' and ignored most of them.
To remind the Vatican, here are key commandments which they treated as a 'study document':
First, I am the Lord thy God, thou shall not have strange gods before me.
Yet the Pope clearly enjoys the trappings of power and the idolatrous spectacle of people kneeling before him to kiss his ring -- just as Caesar did when proclaiming himself God.
Third, remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.
Yet now we clearly know that some clergy used that holiness to violate little children.
What happened to Jesus's words: "Suffer the little children to come unto me for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?"
Another 'study document' consigned to the rubbish heap.
Fifth, thou shall not kill. We know that some victims of institutional abuse have, sadly, taken their own lives. We know children died in care. To name one, Marian Howe died in Goldenbridge Industrial School.
Sixth, thou shall not commit adultery. We now know that bishops and priests fathered children while pretending to the world to be celibate.
Ninth, thou shall not covet thy neighbour's wife. We know that some clergy had affairs with married women.
For these reasons, I hope the Taoiseach and Tanaiste ignore the Vatican's defence of their stance on the Cloyne Report.
After all, the Vatican ignored the commandments and introduced their own law, canon law, which is a smokescreen to hide and conceal everything that is rotten in the church.