Vatican rejects cover-up claims over Cloyne report

Vatican rejects cover-up claims over Cloyne report
3 September 2011

The Vatican has rejected claims by Irish PM Enda Kenny that it sabotaged efforts by Irish bishops to report child-molesting priests to police.

It follows the damning Cloyne Report that showed how allegations of clerical sex-abuse in Cork had been covered up.

In a speech to parliament in July, Mr Kenny accused the Church of putting its reputation ahead of abuse victims.

The Vatican said it was "sorry and ashamed" over the scandal but said his claims were "unfounded"....

"The Holy See... in no way hampered or sought to interfere in any inquiry into cases of child sex abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne."

"Furthermore, 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."

'Misinterpretation'

Mr Kenny had told the Irish parliament that the report into how allegations of sex abuse by priests in Cork had been covered up showed change was urgently needed.
Enda Kenny Enda Kenny accused the Catholic Church of putting its reputation ahead of child rape victims

"The rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation'," he said.

Parliament then passed a motion deploring the Holy See for "undermining child protection frameworks" after a letter to Irish bishops appeared to diminish Irish guidelines on reporting sex abuse by referring to them as "study guidelines".....

Released in July, the 400-page Cloyne Report found that Bishop John Magee - who stood down in March 2009 after serving as bishop of Cloyne since 1987 - had falsely told the government and the health service that his diocese was reporting all abuse allegations to authorities.

It also found that the bishop deliberately misled another inquiry and his own advisors by creating two different accounts of a meeting with a priest suspected of abusing a child - one for the Vatican and the other for diocesan files.

It discovered that, contrary to repeated assertions on its part, the Diocese of Cloyne did not implement the procedures set out in the Church protocols for dealing with allegations of child sex-abuse. It said the greatest failure was that no complaints, except one in 1996, were reported to the health authorities until 2008....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14774142