Guidelines for dealing with cases of clerical child sex abuse, issued by the Irish bishops in January 1996, may not have been sanctioned by the Vatican, it emerged last night.
Lack of approval raises the possibility that the guidelines are invalid.
Under the guidelines it is mandatory for all Catholic bishops on the island to report serious allegations of clerical child sex abuse to civil authorities immediately, but the requisite authorisation for this action may not have been given by the Vatican, according to Mr Paul Bailey, the Irish bishops' child protection officer based at Maynooth.
Mr Bailey was responding to inquiries related to a document issued by the Vatican in 1962 and discovered recently by an American lawyer who represents victims of clerical child sex abuse.
Issued by Rome, it instructed all Catholic bishops to deal with cases involving clerical child sex abuse in strictest secrecy or face excommunication. Referring to the Irish and British bishops' guidelines, Mr Bailey could not say whether, in either case, the guidelines received Vatican approval, whether Vatican approval was sought, or what force in Canon Law such guidelines therefore had.
Last year initial guidelines for dealing with cases of clerical child sex abuse submitted to the Vatican by the American bishops were rejected and had to be redrafted before final approval.
In 1999, while preparing millennium celebrations, the Irish bishops considered offering a general absolution as part of the events but were unsure how the Vatican would view this.
Rather than submit their proposal for approval and risk its rejection they first made private soundings in Rome and were let know unequivocally that general absolution would not be approved. The proposal was not made.
Irish Catholic Church sources indicated last night there would not be a formal response by church authorities here to the 1962 Vatican document until later this week. Many bishops and church officials are away, and others seem to have been taken by surprise by reports of the document.
The 1962 document came to light in the US media when US lawyer, Mr Daniel Shea, contacted CBS News and the Boston Herald newspaper. It was also reported in yesterday's Observer.
The documents, titled Crimine Solicitationes, was signed by Pope John XXIII and circulated to all bishops worldwide.
Dealing with the issue of priests who may solicit sex in the confessional it also encompassed what it refers to as the "worst crime", involving sex acts perpetrated by clergy with "youths of either sex or with brute animals".
In such cases bishops were instructed to deal with them "in the most secretive way". They were to be "restrained by a perpetual silence" and "to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office. . . under the penalty of excommunication".