THE TÁNAISTE AND Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore is to seek a meeting with the Pope’s ambassador to Ireland following the publication of the Cloyne report into the handling of clerical sex abuse allegations.
The Vatican was criticised in the report which said that its response to the allegations made against 19 priests over a 13 year period between 1996 and 2009 was “entirely unhelpful”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed to RTÉ that Gilmore will seek an urgent meeting with the Papal Nuncio to bring the report to the attention of Vatican authorities.
The Belfast Telegraph reports that while officials are keen to have talks no date for the meeting has yet been arranged.
Yesterday, the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said that the Vatican’s response to the allegations was a matter of some seriousness and that it was up to Gilmore to “to have a conversation” with the Papal Nuncio, the Irish Examiner reports.
The report by the Murphy Commission said that the Vatican had actively supported those who flouted the guidelines on child sexual abuse procedures when it described those guidelines as a “study document”.
The report slammed the the Cork diocese’s former bishop John Magee saying he ignored the guidelines.
The Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said yesterday that the response by the Catholic Church in Rome indicated that its “sole concern was the protection of the institution – not the children.”
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