Ireland needs a healing touch

At first glance the reaction of the Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, to the publication of the ­government inquiry into clerical child abuse in Cloyne Diocese seemed misdirected.

The most conspicuous failure identified by the Murphy Commission was that of the then bishop, John Magee, who resigned last year, to deal with the problem adequately. 

Instead, the Taoiseach made the Holy See the target of his anger, charging that it had “downplayed the rape and torture of children” in order to uphold the power and reputation of the Church.

He accused the Vatican of being dominated by a culture of “dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism”.

Irish public opinion seemed to agree with him, and there were even calls – including by MPs in the Dáil – for the nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, to be expelled. 

The Vatican then ratcheted up the row by recalling the archbishop to Rome for “consultations”, a universally understood signal of displeasure. 

As relations further deteriorate, the talk now is of ruling out a papal visit to Ireland proposed for next year. 

Unless both sides change tack, that appears inevitable. But both sides have good reason to want to see this conflict resolved.

As it is the Vatican that has put itself in the wrong, it is the Vatican that should take the initiative in making peace.

The crucial piece of evidence in the Cloyne report was a letter sent in 1997, via the nuncio, from the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome, newly headed by Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos.

It dismissed the so-called “framework document”, which had been agreed by the Irish Bishops’ Conference the previous year for dealing with child-abuse cases, as non-binding and not in accordance with canon law – looking at it, in Mr Kenny’s words, “through the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer”. 

The document committed the Irish bishops to report cases of alleged child abuse by clergy to the police. It was recognised that church processes for dealing with such cases were defective, in some cases leaving abusive priests to continue their abuse even after plausible allegations had been made against them.

Encouraged by Cardinal Castrillón’s intervention, Bishop Magee decided not to follow the framework document in his diocese, and as a result a number of cases were not reported to the police, as the framework document said they should have been. 

That was a direct failure of the duty of supervision that the Holy See has towards all diocesan bishops, who under the hierarchical system of government in the Catholic Church are only answerable upwards. This invites the suspicion that the system has become, in Mr Kenny’s word, dysfunctional.

The fatal mistake of the Holy See was to stand on the principle that one sovereign authority, the Irish state, had no right to investigate the affairs of another, the Holy See. It refused to cooperate with the government inquiry.

Instead, in these particular circumstances it should have waived its privileges, humbly accepted that the 1997 letter had disastrous effects which its author presumably did not intend, and worked with the Irish Government and its inquiry to find explanations and solutions. 

Indeed, throughout the worldwide church crisis ­concerning child abuse by priests, the Vatican has been reluctant to admit that its policies and procedures might have been a contributing factor. 

It could, for instance, have ratified the Irish bishops’ framework document, making it part of local canon law. 

It chose not to do so, nor to explain why. That is an example of the high-handed attitude that justifies the Taoiseach’s anger.

The situation of the Catholic Church in Ireland was already catastrophic, before the latest démarche.

Nevertheless, Pope Benedict has given plenty of signs that, unlike many of his advisers, he understands the nature and depth of the crisis. 

His pastoral letter to the Irish people last year accused the bishops of grave errors of judgement, just as his apologies to victims on behalf of the Church, in the course of his visit to Britain in September, helped defuse the tensions that had been building up in the weeks before. 

The latest report into child protection in the Catholic Church in England and Wales showed that the penitent and compassionate attitude he displayed prompted numerous victims of abuse committed many years ago to come forward at last, which must aid the process of healing, reconciliation and justice. 

And that touch, overwhelmingly, is what Ireland now needs.

If events are heading in the opposite direction, they must be reversed. And if the Holy See has to show a meek and humble face to achieve that, then so be it. 

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