Vatican lashes out at WikiLeaks over priest child abuse cable
By Juan Rubiano/Flickr
Now it’s the Vatican that’s upset with revelations coming out of WikiLeaks.
The genesis for the Catholic Church’s ire is the disclosure in diplomatic cables that the Holy See failed to cooperate in an Irish investigation into alleged child abuse by priests.
The observations were made by the U.S. envoy to the Vatican.
The Vatican today issued a statement in response, which tries to minimize the import of the cables.
“Naturally these reports reflect the perceptions and opinions of the people who wrote them and can not be considered as expressions of the Holy See itself…” the Vatican statement says.
“Their reliability must, then, be evaluated carefully and with great prudence, bearing in mind this circumstance.”
The Guardian newspaper in the UK published a cable which suggests that the probe by the Irish government into the alleged abuse of children in Dublin failed to respect the “sovereignty” of the church.
“The Vatican believes the Irish government failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations,” the cable says.
The State Department analysis gives new insight into Rome’s mindset with regard to the priest sex scandal. It raises an interesting point and speaks toward the mindset at the Vatican. Publicly, the church is expressing great concern about the sexual abuse of children by priests. But the cable at least suggests that the Vatican, which is given statehood status by many nations, may view its priests as protected by diplomatic immunity.
In fact, earlier this year, a top Vatican legal advisor suggested that the pope is immune from civil liability for his alleged failure to act and may have covered up when priests were accused of abusing minors.
“The pope is certainly a head of state, who has the same juridical status as all heads of state,” Giuseppe dalla Torre said in a statement.
Short URL: http://reportergary.com/?p=3241
Posted by
The Pope has sovreignty IN the Vatican……… nowhere else, surely.
This only goes to show how antiquated the Vatican is in it’s view of its own importance. We hear criticism of Islam, how it needs to come into the 21st Century – well perhaps we should suggest the same thing to the Catholic church.
If this is the sort of reaction that the releasing of these files through Wikileaks exposes, the VIVA WIKILEAKS!!!
If you peak, it may get leaked. I am so exasperated with the Vatican on the child abuse issue and trying to bury it. I have one question? WWJD? in this matter ..that is what i ask the pope or any one else who represents them.