Vatican rejects Taoiseach’s criticism over Cloyne sex abuse report

THE VATICAN HAS this morning denied claims that it interfered in
efforts to report priests implicated in the Cloyne report to authorities
and criticised the Taoiseach’s unprecedented attack on the Catholic
Church in July.

In a statement issued this morning, the Vatican rejected charges that
it sabotaged plans by Irish bishops to report abusive priests to police
and responded in detail to Enda Kenny’s unprecedented 20 July
denunciation of the Vatican’s handling of abuse.

The Vatican said Kenny’s claims, which followed the publication of a
report into the diocese of Cloyne, were “unfounded” and 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 Vatican also rejected accusations it diminished the policy’s
seriousness, saying the bishops themselves never sought to make it
binding.  



The full report can be accessed here