IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
[Enda Kenny’s speech regarding the Cloyne Report]
Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, who attacked the Vatican for its failure to intervene to prevent child abuse by priests, will meet the Pope this week
Gerard O’Connell
Rome
Ireland’s Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Enda Kenny, will meet Pope Benedict XVI next Saturday, September 22, together with other European political leaders of the Centrist Democrats International Group, that is the global international political group dedicated to the promotion of Christian democracy. There is some speculation in Ireland that Kenny may use the occasion to invite the Pope to visit the country.
It will be their first encounter since Kenny openly attacked the Vatican in a speech to the Dail (the Irish Parliament’s lower house) on 20 July 2011 for failing to intervene in ways that could have prevented the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Republic.
He then accused the Vatican of putting the institution before children, dissuading Irish bishops from reporting abuse cases to the civil authorities, and attempting to obstruct a Government Commission of Inquiry into the abuse of children by priests in Cloyne diocese in recent years. He said the Cloyne report revealed “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism, the narcissism, that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day”.
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