Sir, – The Holy See and the bishops of Ireland (with a few exceptions) have been caught in a legalistic trap of their own making. This overlooks their pastoral responsibility and their failure in placing the value of “avoidance of scandal” above the value of “outing” its office-holders for crimes committed. They quite clearly see the mote in the Irish eye and fail to see the log in their own.
The Taoiseach and Tánaiste cannot win a legalistic battle with the Vatican.
But they have won the battle for the hearts and minds of most Irish people who believe in the value system of Jesus Christ, demanded by the church of its followers, but not lived out by many of its leaders.
Moral authority still rests with our Government on this matter.
We have had enough of conditional apologies, enough of reasoned arguments, and enough denial of the truth, by those who want us to believe that “the truth will set you free”. Enough is enough. It is time for the church to listen to the pain, without any “ifs”, “buts”, “excuses” or “legal arguments”. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The Vatican’s response to recent criticism from the Irish Government is welcome, even if it has something of the curate’s egg about it.
The Vatican says in the summary “the Holy See wishes to make it quite clear that it in no way hampered . . . any inquiry into cases of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne”. This may be true of Cloyne but what about the Dublin archdiocese? Murphy reports (2.23) that in 2006 and again (2.24) in 2007 the Vatican failed to respond to its requests for information.
Not even an acknowledgment.
This is the attitude that fuelled Enda Kenny’s speech. He expressed the feelings of the Irish people at these gratuitous insults offered to us by a foreign state.
When we see some sign of contrition then, and only then, should we accept a nuncio in Dublin. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Archbishop Martin has given us cause to believe he is well intentioned, but these “gentlemanly phrased statements” and hoped for “gentlemanly phrased responses” give a clear and unhappy message regarding Irishwomen’s place in this debate. Will it ever change? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The Vatican hasn’t missed the point, far from it; it has instead, very deliberately, avoided it. – Yours, etc,
Sir , – The only important thing in this matter is that thousands of children were abused by Roman Catholic clerics and that this abuse was brought to the attention of the Vatican through the Irish archbishops long before effective steps were taken by the Vatican to stop it. Otherwise thousands of these events would have been prevented. QED. – Yours, etc,