Tánaiste says Rome must explain its intervention

THE Government is on collision course with the Vatican after Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore demanded an explanation from Rome regarding what he called the “in appropriate intervention in the laws of our country”.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs made his comments after a meeting with the Pope’s representative in Ireland, the papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza.

He expressed his remorse regarding the contents of the Cloyne report, but that did little to ease the Government’s anger over the Vatican’s intervention — highlighted in the report — in which it described child safety measures the Church was supposed to be implementing as “a study document”.

It has been argued that such a suggestion provided ‘carte blanche’ to Msgr Denis O’Callaghan, and others, in the Cloyne Diocese to ignore laws regarding the reporting of alleged clerical child abuse.

The Cloyne report highlighted the lack of reporting of complaints and allegations to gardaí and health authorities, while Msgr O’Callaghan — charged by Bishop John Magee with overseeing child protection in the diocese — admitted that he had no faith in the guidelines he was supposed to be policing.

The Tánaiste yesterday demanded that the papal nuncio offer a swift response and used both a firm tone and strong diplomatic language to express the level of anger felt at the Vatican’s unwanted intervention which he said “had the effect of undermining the efforts” to secure the safety of children.

“I want an explanation,” Mr Gilmore said. “This is a formal request on behalf of this government, on behalf of this state.”

He called the Vatican’s role, as highlighted in the report, a “totally inappropriate, unjustified, unacceptable intervention” and that it had sent the message that it was “all right to evade” state laws.

“This is not the time of the penal laws,” he said, adding that it was a recent intervention made in the past decade and a half.

“This is modern Ireland,” he said, adding that the Vatican had been involved in an “inappropriate intervention in the laws of our country”.

The Tánaiste said he had not given the papal nuncio a timeframe within which the Vatican had to reply, but he said he would be the judge of what was an adequate timeframe, paving the way for even firmer diplomatic action if the Vatican fails to comply.

Similarly, on the issue of the Government’s proposed measures aimed at firming up child protection, he said it was not an issue of voluntary compliance any more, and that every body, including the Church, would have to abide by the laws of the state.

Earlier, the papal nuncio had said: “I am very grateful to the minister for the meeting I had with him. I think it has been useful. He has given me a copy of the report and I will be bringing it immediately to the attention of the Holy See.

“Naturally, I am very distressed myself that again there have been failures in assuring the protection of children within the Church despite all the good work that has been done. I wish to stress however the total commitment of the Holy See for its part to taking all the necessary measures to ensure their protection.”