ANALYSIS:Rarely in the field of diplomatic exchanges has a taoiseach received so loud a raspberry from such a moral high ground, writes PADDY AGNEW
YOU COULD call it a case of Vatican “catenaccio”. The Holy See’s “response” to Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore represents a detailed, across-the-board rejection of all the criticisms made against the Vatican not only by the Taoiseach and the Government but also by the Cloyne commission itself.
The response’s tone might well be a genuine attempt to avoid further polemics, as indicated on Saturday by senior Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, yet its defence of the Holy See is uncompromising. At the very beginning it states that the “criticisms and accusations” made against the Holy See in the Cloyne report are based on the commission’s interpretation of the infamous 1997 letter written by then Irish nuncio, Archbishop Luciano Storero, to the Irish bishops. The problem is, says the response, the commission got it wrong, calling its assessment “inaccurate”.
In particular, with reference to the nuncio’s much-touted reservations about “mandatory reporting” of sex abuse offences, the Vatican rejects the allegation that this represented an invitation to cover up. First, it argues, the nuncio’s reservations concerned canon law and the possibility of securing a canonical conviction.
Second, as for the concept of mandatory reporting, it concludes: “Given that the Irish government of the day decided not to legislate on the matter, it is difficult to see how Archbishop Storero’s letter to the Irish bishops, which was issued subsequently, could possibly be construed as having somehow subverted Irish law or undermined the Irish State . . .”
Tellingly, the response underlines on at least a dozen occasions that “civil law concerning the reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed”. It refers to a 1998 meeting of Irish bishops in Co Sligo addressed by the then prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillòn Hoyos, advising the bishops not to “put an obstacle in the legitimate path of civil justice”.
Furthermore, the response rejects the argument that the Irish bishops’ 1996 framework document was denied Vatican “recognition”, thus in some way undermining the bishops in their attempt to deal with the sex abuse issue. The problem was “the Irish bishops never sought recognition from the Holy See for the framework document”.
Having dismissed the commission’s analysis, the response moves on to Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Here one might suggest that never in the field of diplomatic exchanges has a taoiseach received so loud a raspberry from such a moral high ground.
The response points out that the Taoiseach fails to substantiate his July 20th claim about Vatican interference “as little as three years ago, not three decades ago”, pointing out that even his spokesman could not identify “any specific incident”.
Furthermore, the Holy See took exception to the “out of context” use of a quote from the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in a 1990 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document “as a basic methodological principle, a quotation extracted from a given text can be correctly understood only when it is interpreted in the light of its context”. In other words, that 1990 document was dealing with the role of modern theologians and not with either church-State relations or with the question of clerical sex abuse. Put another way, do your homework more carefully next time, Mr Taoiseach.
The response also criticises the Taoiseach for failing to acknowledge that since 2001, much has changed in the Holy See and that its handling of “aspects of the (sex abuse) problem” has become “simpler . . . more effective and more expeditious”. Furthermore, it lists the now familiar list of Vatican initiatives – meetings with Cardinal Seán Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the pastoral letter to the Irish, the apostolic visitation – as proof that the Vatican is not, as claimed by the Taoiseach, “indifferent to the plight of those who suffered abuse in Ireland”.
Last, and by no means least, the Holy See response outlines a fundamental tenet of Vatican thinking concerning the “nature of the church and the responsibility of individual bishops”. Bishops, it says, “are neither representatives nor delegates of the Roman pontiff but of Christ”. As such, the bishop is “responsible for penal discipline in his diocese”.
During his Saturday briefing, spokesman Fr Lombardi even suggested the Vatican has “no centralist vocation”. A cynic might argue that this is Vatican speak for: the Holy See will not be picking up the damages tab on this one.