Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has repeated his call for Taoiseach Enda Kenny to explain his claim that the Vatican sought to frustrate an investigation into clerical abuse in Ireland three years ago.
Mr Kenny told the Dail in July that the Vatican had attempted to “frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic”.
Yesterday, the Vatican issued a response to the Government rejecting these claims as unfounded.
Dr Martin said the Taoiseach’s comments merited explanation because there was “no evidence presented in the Murphy report to substantiate this, the Holy See could find no evidence and the Department of An Taoiseach’s office said that the Taoiseach was not referring to any specific event”.
Dr Diarmuid Martin said he wanted an explanation for a very specific allegation made against the church.
Asked if he thought the Vatican’s communiqué would lead to the repairing of relations between the Government and the Vatican, Dr Martin said the Holy See response was a “gentlemanly phrased statement” and that he hoped it would receive a “gentlemanly phrased response”.
Minister for Enterprise, Richard Bruton said today the Government would study the Vatican's statement, before giving its response.
Mr Kenny has said he does not regret his criticisms of the Vatican after it rejected his accusation that it tried to frustrate an inquiry into clerical child abuse.
In its formal response to the Government following the publication of the Cloyne report, the Holy See rejected accusations that it hampered or interfered with the inquiry into abuse cover-ups in the Diocese of Cloyne.
It expressed significant reservations about the content of Mr Kenny’s speech in July when he said: “for the first time in Ireland, a report in child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago.
The Vatican statement said these allegations were unfounded.
“In particular, the accusation that the Holy See attempted ‘to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago’, which Mr Kenny made no attempt to substantiate, is unfounded.”
It said the claims were based on an incorrect reading of a 1997 Vatican letter expressing “serious reservations” about the Irish bishops’ 1996 policy requiring bishops to report abusers to gardaí.
The Holy See said it does not accept that “the Vatican intervened to effectively have priests believe they could in conscience evade their responsibilities under Irish law”.
"In this regard, the Holy See wishes to make it quite clear that it in no way hampered or sought to interfere in any inquiry into cases of child sex abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne," the Vatican said in the statement.
"Furthermore, at no stage did the Holy See seek to interfere with Irish civil law or impede the civil authority in the exercise of its duties."
In July, the Dáil passed a motion deploring the Holy See for "undermining child protection frameworks" after a letter to Irish bishops appeared to diminish Irish guidelines on reporting sex abuse by referring to them as "study guidelines".
The Cloyne Report, published in July, was the fourth major report in six years into the church’s cover-ups of clerical abuse. It found that Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, misled the minister for children by claiming the church’s guidelines for handling abuse cases were being fully complied with.
Bishop’s John Magee resignation was accepted by the pope last year.
Mr Kenny said yesterday he did not regret making the speech. “I made my statement to the Dáil, and obviously the question being asked by the Tánaiste on behalf of the Government was to have the Vatican respond in respect of a statutory commission of inquiry arising from the Cloyne situation,” the Taoiseach said.
The Vatican statement was issued after Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore sought a response from the Holy See on claims that it allowed priests to ignore mandatory reporting guidelines on suspected child abusers within the church.
In the communiqué the Holy See said it was sorry and ashamed for the “terrible sufferings which the victims of abuse and their families have had to endure”.
“The Holy See is deeply concerned at the findings of the commission of inquiry concerning grave failures in the ecclesiastical governance of the Diocese of Cloyne and the mishandling of allegations of abuse.”
The correspondence stated that the bishops’ policy was “merely a discussion document” and that the Vatican had serious moral and canon reservations about mandatory reporting of clerical abuse.
But the Vatican says that taken out of context, the comments in the letter to Irish bishops “could be open to misinterpretation, giving rise to understandable criticism.”
“In the light of the findings of the Cloyne Report, the basic difficulty with regard to child protection in that diocese seems to have arisen not from the lack of recognition for the guidelines of the framework document but from the fact that, while the diocese claimed to follow the guidelines, in reality it did not,” the Vatican said.
Mr Gilmore said the arguments put forward by the Vatican were legalistic and technical.
“The Government’s concern was never about the status of the church documents but rather about the welfare of children,” Mr Gilmore said.
Abuse victim and campaigner Andrew Madden said: “The gimlet eye of the canon lawyer has been busy in the Vatican as publication of the Holy See’s response to the Irish Government regarding the Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne reveals every effort to continue to find ways for the Holy See to absolve itself of any responsibility for the cover up of the sexual abuse of children by priests for decades from one side of the world to the other.”
Support group One in Four accused the Vatican of not accepting responsibility for a culture which facilitated child abuse.
The Vatican’s statement focuses on the Government’s response to the Cloyne report, rather than on the findings of the report itself. The Holy See said this is because it does not want to encroach on matters where the civil authorities are considering possible criminal or civil prosecutions.
Additional reporting: PA