AN IRISH bishop told the pope and senior cardinals in the Vatican last week that the failure of Rome and the papal nunciature in Dublin to respond to correspondence from the Murphy Commission “gave a very bad impression”.
Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby said he also told the Vatican that “for years they did not appreciate the gravity of the problem” of clerical child sex abuse in Ireland.
He said there was a good response to what he said from the cardinals and Vatican officials. “There was recognition that some of the Roman Congregations were not helpful in the past. Canon law is to be updated to take greater account of the problem of clerical child sexual abuse. The obligation to report crimes to the secular state was recognised and will be encouraged,” he said.
He was “saddened that the survivors were disappointed with the outcome of the meeting. Perhaps their expectations were too high . . . As I mentioned earlier, there was an acknowledgement that changes had to be made, and an undertaking that this would happen”.
In an address on the Clonfert website, which he delivered at St Brendan’s Cathedral in Loughrea, Co Galway, last Sunday, he said it was “serious evil in matters of sexual abuse of children that led Pope Benedict XVI to invite the Irish bishops to the Vatican . . .”
Each Irish bishop “submitted the text of what he would say to the pope, the cardinals and the Vatican officials” at the meeting, he said. Topics covered included “counselling and pastoral outreach to survivors of abuse, the impact of poor management of child abuse cases, the accountability of the church, restoring confidence in the church, questioning the public credibility of bishops and priests, [and] a new understanding of sexuality and the role of women in the church”.
Looking forward to the pope’s pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, Bishop Kirby concluded: “I think a good start has been made in addressing a serious problem in the Catholic Church not only in Ireland but also worldwide.”
Yesterday, Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi told The Irish Times he had “nothing to add” to the Holy See’s press release of last Tuesday on the meeting between Pope Benedict and the Irish bishops. He was responding to questions arising from reflections Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary posted on the Tuam website, in which he said the pope “asked for the forgiveness of the victims” at last week’s meeting. “I have to stick to what is in the [Vatican] communiqué . . . otherwise it all becomes confused,” Fr Lombardi said.
There is no reference to a papal request for forgiveness in the communiqué.