CNN.com
Church document warns against mandatory reporting of child sex abuse
By the CNN Wire Staffc/div>
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* 1997 letter warns bishops to follow canonical law
* Letter was sent to bishops in Ireland
* Program says Pope Benedict XVI doing more than previous popes to tackle
abuse
(CNN) -- A 1997 letter from the Vatican's representative to bishops in Ireland
warns them to follow church law in investigating cases of suspected child sex
abuse by priests and expresses "serious reservations" about requiring that such
cases be reported to the police.
The Vatican has responded by calling the letter "deeply misunderstood."
The two-page letter, written by Apostolic Nuncio Luciano Storero, was sent to
bishops in Ireland in response to a document they had sent to the Vatican that
recommends mandatory reporting of cases of suspected child sex abuse by priests.
After studying the Irish bishops' document, the Vatican's Congregation for the
Clergy said it contains "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 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,"
Storero wrote.
"In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious
reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature," he added.
The letter was obtained by Irish state broadcaster RTE for a religious-affairs
program broadcast Monday. RTE said it had received the letter from an Irish
bishop and that Catholic officials in the country had previously refused to
release it. A lawyer for the Vatican sent a copy of the letter to CNN.
The RTE program "Would You Believe?" said Pope Benedict XVI is now doing more
than any previous pope has done to tackle abuse, but asked whether that has
been enough.
Jeffrey Lena, the lawyer representing the Holy See in the United States, said
in a statement that "the letter in question has been deeply misunderstood."
He said its primary purpose "was to help ensure that bishops who discipline
their priests for sexual abuse did so in a manner that would ensure that the
priest not avoid punishment based upon technical grounds. This is precisely the
opposite of what has been reported in many press accounts."
The letter also raised questions about the canonical validity of what Lena
called the "study document" produced by the Irish Bishops' Conference. "As
such, contrary to media reports, the letter did not constitute a rejection of
the position of the conference," he said. "Finally, and again in stark contrast
to news reports, the letter nowhere instructed Irish Bishops to disregard civil
law reporting requirements."
A Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said the letter rightly insists that
canon law be respected to ensure that guilty priests have no grounds for
recourse.
"We need to remember that the letter was written before the norms of 2001,"
which clarified the matter, he said.
But victims' and survivors' groups in Ireland said the letter proves the
protection of pedophile priests from criminal investigation was not only
sanctioned by Vatican leaders but ordered by them. One in Four, an organization
representing victims of sexual abuse in Ireland, said the letter raised
questions about the inquiry into child sex abuse by clerics in Ireland.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests raised similar concerns. "In
the mid 1990s, Irish bishops wanted to start telling law enforcement about
horrific child sex crimes," the group said in a statement. "Top Vatican
bureaucrats told them no. That's what this newly-released letter shows. We
can't help but wonder how many other similar documents -- in which the Vatican
thwarts local efforts to combat abuse -- remain hidden in church records across
the world."
"It's certainly an embarrassment for the Vatican," said CNN Senior Vatican
Analyst John L. Allen, Jr. "It's another confirmation that, in the late 1990s,
there was deep ambivalence in the Vatican about how far they should go in terms
of reporting priestly sex abuse to civil authorities."
But, he added, "It's not a smoking gun because it is not a directive. Not an
order. This is one Vatican official giving his opinion. It is not a policy
document."
Current Church policy calls for such cases -- learned about outside the
confessional -- to be reported to police, he said.
CNN's Ben Brumfield and journalist Peter Taggart contributed to this report.
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