The Irish Times 20th July 2010
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent, and PAUL CULLEN, Political Staff
A GOVERNMENT motion on the Cloyne report, to be debated in the Dáil today, “deplores the Vatican’s intervention which contributed to the undermining of the child protection frameworks and guidelines of the Irish State and the Irish bishops”.
It expresses “dismay at the disturbing findings of the report and at the inadequate and inappropriate response, particularly of the church authorities in Cloyne, to complaints and allegations of child sexual abuse.”
Separately, former professor of moral theology at Maynooth, Rev Vincent Twomey, has said talk of closing the Irish Embassy to the Holy See and expulsion of the papal nuncio was “over the top”. He said it illustrated “bad conscience” on the part of politicians where child protection was concerned.
“What are the politicians doing now, apart from ‘Piggygate’?” he asked. Expelling the papal nuncio “would make us the laughing stock of the world . . . not least when we need the calm waters of diplomacy, as Archbishop Martin said.”
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore last night ruled out expelling the papal nuncio. A spokesman said the Government needed to ensure that diplomatic channels remained open in order to communicate its views to the Vatican and receive its response. Mr Gilmore said the Government was awaiting a formal response from the Vatican to the Cloyne report.
His spokesman said: “While a deadline for a response was not set, the Tánaiste has made it clear that if a response is not forthcoming in a reasonable time frame, it will be followed up on.”
Rev Twomey repeated his call for all Irish bishops who assumed office before May 2004, when Archbishop Diarmuid Martin became Archbishop of Dublin, to resign. “If the bishops have any love for the church would they please show it by making a sacrifice and stepping aside,” he said.
Asked if this may be unfair to some bishops, he said “the pope asked the Irish church to do penance. If the bishops resigned, that would be a real act of penance, both here and in the hereafter.”
He said he was “incandescent with rage” on reading the Cloyne report, at the inertia and the deceit. “How could we have any credibility with that going on?” He had met enough victims to know the horrendous damage abuse inflicted on them, he said.
Speaking about the seal of confession yesterday, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said, “how the church deals with the laws of the State, that’s up to the church . . .” She said the confessional issue was “a bit of a distraction . . . What we saw in Cloyne was that . . . people talked about abuse in offices, in rooms of the diocese, not in confession, and they weren’t acted on.”
She also said the legislation would allow “in exceptional circumstances”, where a victim requests it, that the abuse would not be reported.
Ms Fitzgerald yesterday also laid before the Oireachtas the second progress report on the implementation of recommendations in the Ryan report on abuse in residential institutions for children. The report lists “key achievements” since the Ryan report’s publication in May 2009. These include a placement service for children. Gardaí throughout the State can now ring a single phone number to access foster care arrangements on an out-of-hours basis.
MR TWOMAY. its the vatican that have chosen to ignore the rules in a country where thay have an embassy. when politions do things like lieing covering up crimes and so forth its normal to complain and send the representant of that country back to his own place. abuseing children is a grave crime. and covering it up is lieing. and leaving children in grave danger is awful.
what a shower of wa….. Any criminal organisation with the record like that held by the catholic church would be expelled from having any dealings with children so where is the problem,,,, far from people around the world wondering what is going on.THEY WOULD SEE THAT THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND ARE NOT GOING TO PUT UP WITH ABUSERS ANYMORE
Congratulations are due to Minister Fitzgerld again for the expansion of her portfolio to include the Dept of Justice. Her pronouncements on legal issues are transparently self-serving as they are not backed by Alan Shatter the Minister for Justice. Is he aware of her infringement into his role?
Since her pronouncements last week she is already back-peddling on the issue of confessional reporting – as if that would ever happen. Minister Fitzgerald continues to demonstrate her core lack of understanding of the issues of abuse with her confessional rant. Let me spell it out for her. These reports deal with the clergy (the priest in the box) not the people seeking sacraments in the confessional. How did she miss that?
The apologists weren’t long emerging from the shadows to counter the inflated rhetoric of politicians who called for the ouster of the Papal Nuncio and closing of the Embassy.
Quoting the article, ‘Rev Vincent Twomey, has said talk of closing the Irish Embassy to the Holy See and expulsion of the papal nuncio was “over the top”. Really? By what measure?
We Irish have burned embassies and shot our emissaries for less. The burning of the embassy would be a good start. That it won’t be, reflects the deep roots the church has in Ireland. There will be no consequence for the church, morally or punitively. Once the fuss has died down life will go on and we will ‘put it in the past.’ For politicians the scary thing is that this is the stuff of revolutions – throw out the church and a new order emerges that will devour not only the clergy but its supporters too.
The crimes committed by the church, that the Irish taxpayer is paying to record, equal major catastrophic events in other cultures. It is Ireland’s Holocaust or Hiroshima.
For generations an enemy who lived amongst us targeted our children for rape and molestation and covered it up from local to the highest levels. These men fooled us into believing that they were representatives of G-d on earth – imagine!
In not responding with clear knowledge of what was happening (for generations) the Vatican is complicit, begging the question; is being a pedophile a prerequisite for being a priest? Judging by the lack of response from Rome it’s a case of if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Quack.
“Former professor of moral theology at Maynooth, Rev Vincent Twomey,said it illustrated “bad conscience” on the part of politicians where child protection was concerned.”
So suggesting that any action be taken is considered a “bad show” by people near the church.
And what about the victims?
I suggest that any organisation who recently invited Mugabe to the Vatican is obviously a solid pillar that can be depended upon to comment about issues of conscience, especially when they have shown repeatedly throughout their own history, either not to have one or only have one that suits the basis for their own continuation as an organisation.
Roll over Adolf, Jesus loves you!
MM