Madam, - Sean O'Conaill (October 3rd) asks: "If the 1962 Vatican directive Crimen Sollicitationis is the explanation for this uniform policy of covering up [ sexual abuse of children by clergy], what is the explanation?"
I suggest that shielding the general public from the truth that some priests were abusing was the motivation for the perhaps instinctive and seemingly uniform secrecy surrounding sexual abusers in the Catholic Church. It may not have been understood in the 1960s that sexual abuse had lasting consequences for a child. Therefore, to shield the general public from the truth would have been the pastoral instinct at the time - which with hindsight and with greater understanding can now horrify us.
The alternative explanation - that the bishops and the Vatican authorities were indifferent or had a policy of turning the blind eye - is not plausible given the existence of the 1962 directive. The irony is that a directive that was perhaps written to shield the public from the truth might be a stumbling block in the bringing of offenders to justice if interpreted as an instruction not to reveal details of child sexual abuse to the local police force.
The immature and literal interpretation of a vow of obedience to Rome and the consequent lack of questioning might be to blame for what sometimes seems like a stand-off between the Catholic Church and victims of abuse.
Whatever about the lack of understanding in the 1960s, surely any persistence in failing to report sex offences should now be understood as a criminal offence. The seal of confession should not be used as a shield.
Therefore, perhaps it is time for our bishops to inform the Vatican that Crimen Sollicitationis is not workable in the context of clerical sexual abuse in Ireland today. - Yours, etc,
CAITRIONA McCLEAN, Weston Avenue, Lucan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Seeking to blame the parents of abused children for the failure of bishops to report criminal behaviour, Christopher McCamley writes (October 4th): "Bishops have no skills in criminal investigation. They have no authority to arrest or detain anyone for questioning. They have no forensic division." And that is exactly why, at the very first hint that a civil law protecting children had been broken, they should have reported the matter to the police.
Mr McCamley has re-victimised the victims and failed to explain why there is not - after over a decade of appalling headlines for our church - a papal document instructing bishops to obey the civil laws in existence for the protection of children.
Such a document would have made the Panorama programme impossible, and would also have saved Mr McCamley the trouble of defending the indefensible. Why is there no such document? - Yours, etc,
SEAN O'CONAILL, Co-ordinator, VOTF Ireland, Greenhill Road, Coleraine, Co Derry.