PAPAL NUNCIO Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza paid a farewell courtesy call to President Mary McAleese yesterday as he leaves Ireland to take up his role in Prague as papal nuncio to the Czech Republic.
It brings to an end one of the shortest and, probably, the most turbulent tenure of any Vatican ambassador to Ireland.
A native of Cesaro in Italy, Archbishop Leanza (68) was appointed papal nuncio to Ireland in February 2008. He presented his credentials to Mrs McAleese on April 28th that year. He had served as nuncio in Haiti, Zambia, Malawi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bulgaria before Ireland.
He arrived into a storm. In September 2007 the Murphy commission, then investigating the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations by Catholic Church and State authorities, had written to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seeking reports of clerical child sex abuse sent to it by the Dublin archdiocese. It also sought details on the document Crimen sollicitationis, which dealt with the sexual abuse of children.
The Vatican did not reply but contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs to say the commission had not gone through proper diplomatic channels. The commission, being independent of Government and also investigating the State, did not feel it appropriate to use State diplomatic channels.
In February 2007 it wrote to then papal nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto and requested he forward relevant documentation. He did not reply and was posted to Australia in December 2007.
In January 2009 the Murphy commission wrote to papal nuncio Archbishop Leanza enclosing extracts from drafts of its report, as required. He did not reply.
On publication of the Murphy report in November 2009 Archbishop Leanza said he was not in a position to comment on the extracts as he had only arrived in April 2008 when “the report was already done”.
He was called in by then minister for foreign affairs Micheál Martin, who emphasised public anger at the “appalling abuse of children” in the Murphy report and explained the need “for the Holy See to provide the fullest possible co-operation with any ongoing or further State investigations into clerical child abuse”.
In February 2010 Archbishop Leanza declined an invitation to appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs to discuss the Murphy report. On July 13th last the Cloyne report was published and, the following day, Archbishop Leanza was called in to meet Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore, who told him Vatican intervention in Irish affairs was “absolutely unacceptable” and “inappropriate”.
On July 20th Taoiseach Enda Kenny delivered his Dáil speech on the Cloyne report, which was severely critical of the Vatican. On July 25th Archbishop Leanza was recalled to Rome. On July 28th it was announced he had been appointed papal nuncio to the Czech Republic. He returned to Ireland early last month.
