ACTA APOSTOLICAE SEDIS - La Santa Sede

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Acta Apostolicae Sedis – Commentarium Officiale
his Dáil speech of 20 July 2011 and in the motion passed by Dáil Éireann on
the same day and by Seanad Éireann a week later. It also provides a more
complete account of the Church’s legislation on child sexual abuse than
that described in the Cloyne Report, and states clearly the Holy See’s view
regarding cooperation between Church and civil authorities.
1. Issues regarding the Holy See raised by the Cloyne Report
Having carefully examined the content of the Cloyne Report, the Holy See
concludes that the criticisms and accusations made against it are based primarily
on the Report’s assessment of the letter addressed to the members of
the Irish Bishops’ Conference on 31 January 1997 by the then Apostolic
Nuncio, Archbishop Luciano Storero, concerning the response of the Congregation
for the Clergy to the 1996 document entitled Child Sexual Abuse:
Framework for a Church Response, generally known as the Framework Document.
This letter is quoted extensively in the earlier Dublin Report (7.13-7.14)
and was the object of considerable public attention in January 2011. The
Holy See acknowledges, moreover, that, taken out of context, the letter could
be open to misinterpretation, giving rise to understandable criticism. In what
follows, an explanation of that context is offered, including, crucially, explanation
of the knowledge that the letter presupposes of the workings of the
Church and the relationship between episcopal conferences and the Holy See.
The Cloyne Report quotes the text of Archbishop Storero’s letter and
offers an assessment. In chapter 1 the Report quotes excerpts from the letter
to the effect that the Congregation for the Clergy informed the Bishops that
the document in question was “not an official document of the Episcopal Conference
but merely a study document” and that it contained “procedures and
dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied,
could invalidate the acts of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to
these problems.If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there
were cases of eventual hierarchical recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results
could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.
In particular, the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations
of both a moral and canonical nature” (1.18).
The Commission states its view that “This effectively gave individual Irish
bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave
comfort and support to those who, like Monsignor O’Callaghan, dissented from