Cloyne Report in Ireland Implicates Vatican in Abuse Cover Up

It really isn't a surprise to those of us who have followed the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal since it first exploded in Boston nearly a decade ago. The pattern is always the same: the deliberate cover up of sex crimes against children and youths by bishops and the shuffling of known predators from parish to parish - all of which was condoned by the Vatican which as the Cloyne report indicates allowed bishops to disregard governmental reporting requirements. One has to wonder when rank and file Catholics will get the message that by remaining passive sheep in the pews they are aiding and abetting criminal conduct. Worse yet, they are sending a message to bishops and Rome that they can continue engaging in the same criminal manner. Thankfully, Ireland's Justice Minister is talking about implementing legislation that would make the failure to report abuse an offense that would land clergy - including bishops - in prison for five years. A similar law needs to be implemented world wide. First these highlights from the Irish Times:
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The welfare of children and their protection from predators were low on clergy’s priorities. IRISH BISHOPS and the Vatican have played a major role in exacerbating the tragic story that is clerical child sex abuse in Ireland.
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The Cloyne report has found that the Vatican’s reaction to the (Irish bishops’) 1996 framework document was “entirely unhelpful” to any Irish bishop who wanted to implement it and gave individual Irish bishops freedom to ignore it.
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The Vatican refused to give the document “recognitio”; told the Irish bishops it was “not an official document of the Episcopal Conference but a study document”; and warned that it could be in breach of canon law. It also said the document’s advice on mandatory reporting gave rise to “serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature”.
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The Vatican did so in a confidential letter circulated by the then papal nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Luciano Storero to every Irish bishop in January 1997, a year after the Irish bishops’ guidelines came into play. Nor has the Vatican ratified or given the “recognitio” to the Irish Catholic Church’s 2005 updated guidelines. The papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza refused to explain any of this to the Cloyne commission, as was the case beforehand with the Murphy commission.
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Bishop Magee [of Cloyne] joins a long line of Irish Catholic bishops who have been found, by three statutory reports, grievously wanting where child protection in their dioceses was concerned.
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Given the Catholic Church's refusal to protect children and youth from sexual predators within the clergy, Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter announced his intention to regulate the Catholic Church and see that future failures to report crimes will land priests, nuns and bishops in prison. A place where many of the members of the Church's cesspool like hierarchy ought to be currently. The BBC has coverage on the potential legislation:
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The Cloyne Report found that allegations of abuse by priests made since 1996 had not been properly handled by the then Bishop of the Diocese, John Magee. In his tough response to the report, Mr Shatter announced his intention to introduce legislation later this year which would make it an offence to withhold information about child abuse from the authorities.
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Under the new legislation, cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns would be prosecuted for failing to disclose or report instances of clerical child abuse. Failure to do so could result in a five-year prison term. And in a move which some Catholic clergy have admitted came as a surprise, the justice minister said he would not exclude the priest-penitent confidentiality of the Confession box.
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Father O'Hagan said: "In the wake of the Cloyne Report, news of legal remedies that would challenge or seek to remove the 'privileged' status accorded by many civil jurisdictions, including the Republic of Ireland, to information exchanged between priest and penitent will come as a surprise. "Legal remedies to the failures, personal and institutional, revealed by the Cloyne Report should be proportionate."
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It is long past time that the special privileges and deference afforded to clergy - religion in general for that matter - come to an end. These people cannot be allowed to be above the law. Put their foul asses in jail if they fail to protect children and youths.