Priests face prosecution if they don't tell about crimes confessed to them

Published on Thursday 14 July 2011 23:25

Ireland's prime minister has warned Catholic clerics will be prosecuted if they failed to tell the authorities about crimes disclosed during confession.

A report this week found that the Church concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, and that clerics appeared to follow Church law rather than Irish guidelines to protect minors.

"The law of the land should not be stopped by a crozier or a collar," Prime Minister Enda Kenny said yesterday.

Mr Kenny said his government would submit legislation to parliament that could jail clerics for up to five years if they failed to report to authorities information about the abuse of children.The law will override the confessional privilege in Church law that prevents clerics from sharing information.

A series of revelations of rape and beatings by members of religious orders and the priesthood in the past have shattered the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Meanwhile, the Pope's ambassador to Ireland has been ordered to get answers from the Vatican on damning revelations that it allowed priests to ignore the law.

Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza was told to take a message to the Holy See that the Irish Government believes its conduct in clerical child abuse inquiries has been disgraceful and unacceptable.

The Catholic hierarchy in Rome stand accused of effectively briefing clergy in a 1997 letter to allow them to defy guidelines and not report paedophiles in their ranks.

Pressure is also intensifying on disgraced former bishop John Magee – found to have misled authorities over abuse allegations in the Diocese of Cloyne in Co Cork as recently as 2008 – to come out of hiding.

The Archbishop, who was summoned to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin for a second time in two years, was given a copy of the Cloyne report to pass on to the Vatican.

He said he was distressed by the findings, which go to heart of the Church.

"Naturally I'm very distressed myself at the failures in ensuring the protection of children within the Church, despite all the good work that has been done," he said in a brief statement.

"I wish to stress however, the total commitment of the Holy See for its part in taking all the necessary measures to ensure the protection."

Former bishop Magee is no longer living in Cloyne and has told a spokesman he does not want to add to a statement issued yesterday where he apologised and said he accepted the findings of the report.

The Vatican's most senior spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi declined to answer questions on the scandal – the fourth major clerical abuse inquiry in Ireland to rock the Church.

The report on Cloyne covers the 13 years up to 2009 and contains devastating criticisms which go right to the top of the Catholic Church. It is the second expose by Judge Yvonne Murphy. It accused the Holy See of an "entirely unhelpful" reaction to inquiries.