Foreign Affairs Ireland Meeting urged papal nuncio

Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Irish Times


THE MINISTER for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, is being urged to meet the papal nuncio to establish why the Vatican refused to supply information to the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.

Labour MEP Nessa Childers said: “The Government appears to have settled for the papal nuncio’s account of events and seems prepared to allow this matter to lie unchallenged.”

She said she regretted “that the Department of Foreign Affairs appears to have ruled out any re-assessment of relations with the papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza.

“The only way in which all of the facts around the nuncio’s failure to co-operate with the inquiry can be established once and for all is when the Minister for Foreign Affairs summons him to a meeting. Only then can a decision be made on future diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

“From the start of this process, the Vatican has hidden behind the dark curtain of diplomatic protocol when their primary concern should have been justice for the victims of sexual abuse.

“The Church at present appears to be more concerned with diplomatic niceties and protocols than with the people who suffered at the hands of members of the clergy.”