The Vatican’s response to a 1996 framework document on protecting children did not impede the attempts of the Irish bishops to implement safeguarding in the area of child abuse, Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has said.
Speaking following the release of a communiqué from the Holy See to the Government in response to the Cloyne report, Dr Martin said people in the church in Ireland who were prepared to brush aside the framework document had also rejected the clear norms on child abuse reporting approved by the Vatican.
“They were people who regarded only their own views and would take no note of study documents, of framework documents or even of approved papal norms,” he said. “These people may be few but the damage they caused was huge.”
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".
Dr Martin said one of the key points of the Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s intervention was the assertion that “the Holy See attempted to frustrate an enquiry in a sovereign democratic republic as little as three years ago not three decades ago”.
“There is 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. This merits explanation,” he said.
“Effectively, if you look at it, the intervention did not in fact impede the Irish bishops in unanimously approving the framework document, in applying it and in consistently developing that framework into the current positions of the Irish church.”
The response, in which the Vatican rejected criticisms by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore that it sought to interfere with the reporting of clerical child abuse cases to gardaí and undermine the State’s child protection laws, was “serious, sober in tone” and addressed “broader questions of Church policy on child safeguarding”, Dr Martin said.
“My hope is that it will be understood and received as such and not be an occasion just for added polemics,” he said during a press conference at his home in Drumcondra, Dublin this evening.
“Polemics really do very little for the protection of children and the support of survivors.”
Asked if he thought the communiqué would go some way towards repairing relations between the Government and the Holy See, Dr Martin said the Holy See response was a “gentlemanly phrased statement” and that he hoped it would receive a “gentlemanly phrased response”.
Dr Martin said “honest co-operation” between church and State on child safeguarding issues was particularly important in this country but that the primary role and responsibility of the State in ensuring child protection of children must be “unambiguously recognised by all”.
“We are at a crucial moment regarding the future of child safeguarding in Ireland. Reading the Vatican report on the discussion of mandatory reporting that took place over fifteen years ago, one of my fears is that the same elements who had reservations then, and not just in the Church, may well reappear today,” he said.
He said current standards and guidance documents had the full support of Pope Benedict XVI as was stated in his Letter to Irish Catholics and are described in the Cloyne Report as “high standards which, if fully implemented, would afford proper protection to children”.
“Even the best norms in the world must be accompanied by an on-going process of independent monitoring and reviewing of day-to-day practice,” he said. “Within the Catholic Church this is being undertaken by the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children.
“Its reviews are underway and will be published. The primary responsibility for monitoring child safeguarding measures in any dimension of Irish society belongs — I repeat — with the State.”
He said the current Government was the first in Irish history to dedicate a full cabinet ministry to children’s issues and that it augured well for the future. “We need that future to be framed within a climate of cooperation on all sides.”
“The time has long since past to talk about child protection issues only in the future tense. Ireland owes it to survivors and to children to make this new juncture a real changing point.”
Meanwhile, Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady said the Vatican response “conveys the profound abhorrence of the Holy See for the crime of sexual abuse and its sorrow and shame for the terrible sufferings which the victims of abuse and their families have endured” within the church.
“The time taken to prepare the reply, and its content, indicates the commitment on the part of the Holy See to deal with this matter earnestly, fairly and sensitively,” he said in a statement.
“It shows an appreciation of the seriousness of the questions raised and of the importance, especially for survivors of abuse, of effectively combating this crime.”
Cardinal Brady called on people to read the statement themselves and “evaluate it objectively”.
“I believe it will contribute to the healing of those who have been hurt and also to a closer working together of all concerned with the safeguarding of children,” he said.
