Fallout of Cloyne: Church and state

Irish Jesuit Seamus Murphy SJ, currently lecturing in Chicago, had an article published in the Irish Times, 1 October, responding to the tense and recriminatory correspondence between the Irish government and the Vatican in the aftermath of the Cloyne Report. The government, he argues, were wrong to suppose that Church officials were being encouraged to violate the bishops’ policy of reporting cases of sexual abuse to civil authorities. He agrees with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that those who failed to report such cases “were people who regarded only their own views and would take no note of study documents, of framework documents or even of approved papal norms”. Seamus noted the irony of the government accusing the Vatican of failing to respect Irish law while showing contempt for the Church’s law by dismissing portions of the Vatican’s response as mere “legalism”. Read article here.