Vatican letter denial ‘dishonest spin’

THE Vatican denials that a 1997 letter to bishops urged them not to carry out mandatory reporting of clerical child sex abuse was labelled “dishonest spin” by anti-abuse campaigners.

Fresh controversy over the letter erupted following Monday night’s Would You Believe programme on RTÉ about alleged attempts by the Catholic hierarchy in Rome to staunch the flow of information about clerical child sex abuse here.

In the letter, written by Archbishop Luciano Storero, then the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, it was stated that “the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature”.