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Vatican warned Irish bishops not to report abuse
- , Associated Press Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press – 1 hr 1 min ago
The letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican's rejection ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ an Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify [COLOR=#366388 !important][COLOR=#366388 !important]pedophile [COLOR=#366388 !important]priests[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR].
The letter's message undermines persistent Vatican claims that the church never instructed bishops to withhold evidence or suspicion ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ crimes from police. It instead emphasizes the church's right to handle all child-[COLOR=#366388 !important][COLOR=#366388 !important]abuse [COLOR=#366388 !important]allegations[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], and determine punishments, in house rather than hand that power to civil authorities.
Catholic officials in Ireland declined AP requests on the letter, which RTE said it received from an Irish bishop.
Child-abuse activists in Ireland said the 1997 letter should demonstrate, once and for all, that the protection ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ pedophile priests from criminal investigation was not ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ sanctioned by Vatican leaders but ordered by them. A key argument employed by the Vatican in defending dozens ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ lawsuits over clerical sex abuse in the United States is that it had no role in ordering local church authorities to suppress evidence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ crimes.
"The letter is ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ huge international significance, because it shows that the Vatican's intention is to prevent reporting ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ abuse to criminal authorities. And if that instruction applied here, it applied everywhere," said Colm O'Gorman, director ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the Irish chapter ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ human rights watchdog [COLOR=#366388 !important][COLOR=#366388 !important]Amnesty [COLOR=#366388 !important]International[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR].
To this day, the Vatican has yet to endorse any ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the Irish church's three major policy documents since 1996 on reporting suspected child abuse to civil authorities. In his 2010 pastoral letter to the Irish people condemning pedophiles in the ranks, Pope Benedict XVI faulted Ireland's bishops for failing to follow [COLOR=#366388 !important][COLOR=#366388 !important]canon [COLOR=#366388 !important]law[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] and offered no explicit endorsement ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Irish child-protection efforts by the Irish church or state.
O'Gorman — who was raped repeatedly by an Irish priest when he was an [COLOR=#366388 !important][COLOR=#366388 !important]altar [COLOR=#366388 !important]boy[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] and was among the first victims to speak out in the mid-1990s — said evidence is mounting that some Irish bishops continued to follow the 1997 Vatican instructions and withheld reports ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ crimes against children as recently as 2008.
A third major state-ordered investigation into Catholic abuse cover-ups, concerning the southwest Irish diocese ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Cloyne, is expected to be published within the next few months.
Two state-commissioned reports published in 2009 — into the Dublin Archdiocese and workhouse-style Catholic institutions for children — unveiled decades ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ cover-ups ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ abuse involving tens ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ thousands ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children since the 1930s.
Irish church leaders didn't begin telling police about suspected pedophile priests until the mid-1990s. In January 1996, Irish bishops published a groundbreaking policy document spelling out their newfound determination to report all suspected abuse cases to police.
But in the January 1997 letter seen Tuesday by the AP, the Vatican's diplomat in Ireland at the time, Archbishop Luciano Storero, told the bishops that a senior church panel in Rome, the Congregation for the Clergy, had decided that the Irish church's year-old policy ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ "mandatory" reporting ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ [COLOR=#366388 !important][COLOR=#366388 !important]abuse [COLOR=#366388 !important]claims[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] conflicted with canon law.
Storero emphasized in the letter that the Irish church's policy was not recognized by the Vatican and was "merely a study document." He said canon law — which required abuse allegations to be handled within the church — "must be meticulously followed."
Without elaborating Storero, who died in 2000, wrote that mandatory reporting ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ child-abuse claims to police "gives rise to serious reservations ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ both a moral and a canonical nature."
He warned that bishops who followed the Irish child-protection policy and reported a priest's suspected crimes to police ran the risk ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ having their in-house punishments ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the priest overturned by the Congregation for the Clergy.
The letter, originally obtained by RTE religious affairs program "Would You Believe?", said the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome was pursuing "a global study" ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ sexual-abuse policies and would establish worldwide child-protection policies "at the appropriate time."
The Vatican's child-protection policies today remain in legal limbo. It currently advises bishops worldwide to report crimes to police ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ in a legally non-binding lay guide, but it does not mention this in the official legal document provided by another powerful church body, the Congregation for the Doctrine ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the Faith, which continues to stress the secrecy ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ canon law.
The central message ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Storero's letter was reported second-hand by two priests as part ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Ireland's mammoth investigation into the 1975-2004 cover-up ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ hundreds ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ child-abuse cases in the Dublin Archdiocese. The letter itself, marked "strictly confidential," has never been published before
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