VATICAN CITY, JULY 25, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See has recalled its nuncio in Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, to Rome for consultations with the Secretariat of State, the Vatican reported today.
A communiqué issued by the Vatican press office said the recall comes after “the release on July 13 of the report by the Irish government commission of enquiry into allegations of abuse of minors by clergy in the diocese of Cloyne (the Cloyne Report), and in particular in the wake of the subsequent reactions.”
The Report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Diocese of Cloyne found that nine of 15 cases of sexual abuse were not reported to authorities between 1996 and 2009, which violates the child protection guidelines set down by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Additionally, it cited a 1997 curial letter sent to the Irish bishops’ conference that expressed “serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature” regarding the “mandatory reporting” that was stipulated in the guidelines.
The Cloyne report noted that this letter “effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures.”
In comments made last Wednesday, Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, called the Cloyne report “a tale of a frankly brazen disregard for protecting children.”
Speaking to Ireland’s lower house of Parliament, or Dail, the leader of the moderate Fine Gael Party said that the “revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture,” and added that the government “awaits the considered response of the Holy See.”
