During
a meeting at the Vatican in 1946, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini—the future
Pope Paul VI—told Ireland’s ambassador to the Holy See, “You are the most
Catholic country in the world.” The ambassador, Joseph Walshe, enthusiastically
telegrammed back to Dublin that he believed the country’s relationship with the
Holy See was of “a very special character.”
Just
a couple of years later, the Irish government formally invited Pope Pius XII to
make Ireland his home in the event that the communists won the Italian general
election of 1948, to which the Pope is reported to have said, “Ireland is the
only place I could go to—only there would I have the atmosphere and the sense
of security to rule the Church as Christ wants me to rule it.”
Relations
between the Holy See and Ireland have been severely tested since those heady
days. A great strain became apparent recently when Rome recalled papal nuncio
Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza as a mark of protest following scathing criticism of
the Holy See by senior government ministers, including the Prime Minister Enda
Kenny. The government in Dublin is now proposing a law that would punish with
imprisonment priests who refuse to reveal information about child abuse heard in
the confessional.
Tension
began to mount after the publication of a government report into the
mishandling of allegations of abuse made against priests in the Diocese of
Cloyne. It was the fourth judicial report into allegations of abuse made
against priests and religious in Ireland, and it tragically uncovered the same
pattern of inertia, cover-ups, and disregard for the suffering of innocent
victims revealed in the other reports. Crucially, however, the Cloyne Report
revealed that authorities there were mishandling abuse allegations as recently
as 2008—12 years after the Irish bishops’ conference adopted tough new measures
that included reporting all allegations to civil authorities.
In
her 425-page report published on July 13, Judge Yvonne Murphy made only one
reference to the Holy See, or rather to a 1997 letter from the then-papal nuncio,
Archbishop Luciano Storero. In the letter, Archbishop Storero said the bishops’
1996 guidelines, particularly with regard to mandatory reporting, gave “rise to
serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature.”
Judge Murphy described this letter as “unhelpful” and concluded that the intervention
“effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures
which they had agreed” to and gave “comfort and support” to those in the Church
who were lax on child safeguarding.
Fast
forward to a week after the release of the report, and Judge Murphy’s
description of the letter as being “unhelpful” had morphed dramatically when
Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Vatican during a parliamentary debate of
adopting a “calculated, withering” approach to child abuse.
“The
rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead the
primacy of the institution, its power, standing, and ‘reputation,’” Mr. Kenny
added. In remarks interpreted by some as a direct attack on Pope Benedict XVI,
Mr. Kenny said the “Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection,
elitism, and narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.”
Mr.
Kenny went on to accuse the Holy See of trying “to frustrate an inquiry in a
sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago” without providing details
of what he was talking about. Judge Murphy cited no such example in her report
and to this day Mr. Kenny’s official spokesman has been unable to back up this
claim, insisting only that the Prime Minister had been “speaking in a general
sense.” It’s quite a specific allegation to make “in a general sense.”
Reaction to
Kenny’s speech
Mr.
Kenny’s motion denouncing the Vatican unanimously passed the lower house of the
Irish parliament without a vote. Editorial writers varyingly described Mr.
Kenny’s speech as “a watershed,” “ground-breaking,” and “revolutionary.” Things
were somewhat more temperate in the Upper House of Parliament, where several
senators attempted but failed to modify the Prime Minister’s motion “deploring”
the Vatican.
Senator
RónÁn Mullen, an Independent member representing the University Constituency, told
CWR, “We did not wish to detract from
all that was good in the motion. But the motion’s reference to the ‘Vatican’s
intervention’ stood out for its dishonesty and hypocrisy.”
“First,
and most obviously, the motion concealed the fact that, back in 1997, when the
Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy expressed its concerns about the ‘mandatory
reporting’ dimension of the Irish bishops’ child protection guidelines, there
were no national laws or guidelines within which the bishops were required to
operate,” Mr. Mullen continued. “There were no meaningful ‘child protection
frameworks and guidelines of the Irish state’ at the time the Vatican expressed
its view.”
Senator
Jim Walsh, a member of the main opposition Fianna FÁil party, agrees. “Clearly
our government should have asked the Vatican to explain the motivation for the
concerns it expressed back in 1997,” he told CWR. “The Prime Minister should have awaited that response before
delivering his DÁil broadside at the Vatican and before deciding to ‘deplore’
the 1997 concerns expressed by Rome.”
Father
Vincent Twomey, a respected moral theologian who has been vociferous in his
criticism of obstructionist bishops, believes there was much that was
praiseworthy in Mr. Kenny’s speech.
“It
was supremely important that the pain and hurt of the victims be recognized by
the state in the person of its first minister,” he said. “No less important was
the recognition given to the millions of Irish Catholics at home and abroad who
feel deep shame at what these clerics did and what Church leaders failed to do.
They have remained true to their faith despite all the ‘filth’ that has erupted
in the midst of the Church.”
But
Father Twomey objects to Kenny’s attack on the Holy See. “[Kenny] claimed that
only three years ago, the Vatican tried to intervene in the affairs of the
Irish state in these matters,” Father Twomey said. “But he had no specific
incident in mind—so why make such a reference?”
Father
Twomey also believes that the Irish media has played a role in trying to blame
Pope Benedict for the inertia and reckless behavior of some Irish bishops. He
refers to a newspaper article accompanied by an image of the Pope at the time
of the Prime Minister’s speech. “That image summed up the Irish media’s general
attitude to the Pope. It was an image of the Pope fully vested for Mass, miter
on head, crozier in hand. Imposed on this image was large red stamp like that
on a passport with the words: Persona non
grata.”
“That
is the message Mr. Kenny’s speechwriters conveyed in the DÁil,” Father Twomey
said. “This is nothing less than at attack on what very many Irish citizens
hold dear.”
Not
everyone within the Church was as disappointed with Kenny’s speech. The
recently-formed Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), a dissident group that
represents about 10 percent of Irish priests, enthusiastically welcomed the
intervention. ACP leader Father Tony Flannery said: “Many of us priests are
very frustrated with the way the Vatican conducts its business. To hear someone
in the position of the Taoiseach [Prime Minister] speak so strongly, so
eloquently, and with such dignity in challenging the Vatican was good.”
Father
Flannery’s brother is Prime Minister Kenny’s chief strategist Frank Flannery, a
fact that has led some to question whether the Association of Catholic Priests
may have had a hand in the speech. “It’s surprising that Mr. Kenny’s speech was
vociferous in criticizing the Vatican based on an assumption that the Holy See
was at fault, while at the same time there is ample evidence of the failings of
local bishops, which Mr. Kenny didn’t mention,” according to David Quinn of the
faith-based think-tank the Iona Institute. Mr. Quinn believes that the Prime
Minister’s speech “offered comfort and support to some within the Church in
Ireland who would like to see this crisis as another excuse to blame Rome while
the egregious failings clearly happened in Ireland.”
The Vatican’s response
Following
Kenny’s speech, the response of the Holy See was almost immediate. Within days papal
nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza was recalled, a formal diplomatic gesture
aimed at registering a high-level protest. Rome’s official response came on
September 3. Within hours, Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore had dismissed
the 25-page response as “too legalistic.” In light of that assessment, it is
hard to fathom what exactly the government wanted in a formal response to a
judicial report. The Vatican response said “it has significant reservations
that the speech made by Enda Kenny…in particular, the accusation that the Holy
See attempted to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign democratic republic, is
unfounded.”
The
statement added that the Holy See in no way hampered or sought to interfere in
any inquiry into cases of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne. Furthermore,
the Vatican said that at no stage did the Holy See seek to interfere with Irish
civil law or impede the civil authority in the exercise of its duties.
The
Vatican also disputed the claim that Irish bishops sought but failed to obtain
recognition from Rome for the framework document on responding to abuse
allegations. It said Irish bishops did not, under canon law, seek recognition
for the 1996 guidelines, therefore the Holy See cannot be criticized for
failing to grant what was never requested in the first place.
Dublin’s
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin described the response as detailed and comprehensive,
and expressed his hope that it would be understood and not be an “occasion just
for added polemics.”
The
archbishop also issued a challenge to Prime Minister Kenny to explain what he
was referring to when he said the Vatican was trying to undermine investigations
into abuse in Cloyne.
Despite
repeated questions, Kenny has still been unable to provide any specific example
of such interference.
According
to David Quinn, “so far as Irish public opinion is concerned, the government
will be able to get away with dismissing the Vatican’s response because the
Irish media are as anti-Vatican as the government itself, and because there is
no real political opposition on these issues in this country.”
However,
Mr. Quinn notes that “the Vatican issued its response in French, Italian, and
Spanish as well as in English, meaning it wants the world’s diplomatic
community to read it.”
In
particular, embassies to the Holy See will read the response, report its
contents to their own governments, and “note that Taoiseach’s attack on the
Vatican was scatter-gun and badly framed,” Mr. Quinn believes.
So
while the attack went down well with public opinion, the view of governments
that pay attention to the Holy See is likely to be of a different order. Following
the recall of Archbishop Leanza, Ireland is now without a papal nuncio and,
purely coincidentally, the position of Irish ambassador to the Holy See is also
vacant. This has led some commentators to suggest that Ireland ought to break
off diplomatic relations with the Holy See. No one seriously believes that this
is about to happen, with a well-placed source in the Department of Foreign
Affairs (DFA) telling CWR, “Ireland
is not about to join the ranks of China and Saudi Arabia as being one of a
handful of countries that do not have relations with the Vatican.” It is also
unlikely that the 26 other member states of the European Union (EU)—all of whom
have diplomatic relations with the Holy See—would tolerate Ireland breaking
ties with Rome.
A radical proposal
And
so a quiet peace of sorts now prevails, and it is expected a new nuncio will be
appointed to Dublin before Christmas. But a greater challenge lies ahead. Prime
Minister Kenny has insisted that his government will press ahead with a radical
proposal that would punish priests with imprisonment if they refuse to reveal
any information about child abuse that they may learn in the confessional. It
would make Ireland the only country in the world where the inviolability of the
sacramental seal is undermined by legislation.
Minister
for Children Frances Fitzgerald has insisted the law will go ahead. “We have no
interest in the rules of the Church; there will be no exemption whatsoever,”
she said. “Anyone who is aware of anything to do with child abuse and does not
share it with the civil authorities will be subject to prosecution.”
One
senior Irish cleric who spoke to CWR
on condition of anonymity described the move as “bizarre in the extreme.” He
added: “How does the government realistically expect this to work? Quite apart
from the fact that no priest would ever betray the sacred seal of the
sacrament, will priests be required to get every penitent to fill out a form
with their name and address to pass on to the police?”
According
to Father Eamonn Conway, head of theology at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick,
the government has a fundamental misunderstanding of the sacrament. “No change
to Irish civil law will alter how the sacrament of penance is celebrated,” he
explained. “The confessional seal exists to protect penitents in their
relationship with God, not the priest.”
The
Irish proposal draws obvious comparisons to similar legislation proposed by
Maryland, Connecticut, and New Hampshire in the wake of revelations of abuse
mishandling stateside. In each case, however, the bid to attack the seal of confession
was defeated, partly because of a backlash by thousands of Catholic voters, who
were urged on by their bishops.
Irish
bishops have not yet asked the faithful to write to politicians demanding that
the proposed law be scrapped, but are understandably engaged in a
behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to urge the government to drop the bid.
However, with ministers being so public in their support for the legislation,
it’s hard to see how it can be dropped without Mr. Kenny’s government losing
face.
David
Quinn believes that Enda Kenny is playing a dangerous game. “Historically
speaking, laws of this sort have been found almost exclusively in extremely
anti-Catholic countries, such as Britain during penal times, or in totalitarian
states, which is to say, in states motivated by a wish to put Catholics in
their place,” Quinn said. “Does the government really wish to add Ireland to
that list?”
It’s hard to know what Pope Paul VI would make
of Ireland now. In his pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland in March
2010, Pope Benedict hauntingly reminded Irish Catholics that the scandals “have
obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of
persecution succeeded in doing.” Undoubtedly, the Church has brought many of
its current woes upon itself, but the specter of a government proposing such a
radical step as attempting to undermine the seal of confession should set alarm
bells ringing everywhere. It would indeed be ironic if Ireland, where Catholics
survived centuries of persecution for their faith, were to be the catalyst for
such a devastating disregard for religious freedom.