IRELAND
Irish Times
August 9, 2018
Reports indicate little has changed at the Vatican where handling abuse is concerned
It is frequently the case that, though something is strongly suspected to be true, it comes as a shock when it is finally confirmed. Such happened this week for many people on learning that former Vatican secretary of state Angelo Sodano, in discussion with then president Mary McAleese, suggested a concordat with Ireland which would ensure Church documents were beyond the reach of then ongoing Irish statutory child abuse inquiries.
He did so at a private meeting in November 2003. McAleese ended the discussion immediately. Possibly worse was the Cardinal’s attempt at another private meeting one year later, in November 2004. This time he proposed to then minister for foreign affairs Dermot Ahern that the Irish state might indemnify the Catholic Church against legal actions for compensation by clerical child sexual abuse survivors in Ireland.
Months previously the Irish bishops had been told that such compensation could be as high as €50 million over the following decade. As with McAleese in 2003, Ahern rebuffed the Cardinal in clear, unambiguous terms and the matter was not heard of again.
Cardinal Sodano had form in such matters. Vatican secretary of state from 1991 until 2006, he is believed to have stopped a Church abuse investigation into former archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër, who resigned in 1995 following allegations, later proven, that he had abused young students. The Cardinal also successfully ended a 1998 abuse investigation into Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Maciel would later be found to have abused many young men and to have fathered children with a number of women.
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