Article on Irish Sex Abuse Scandal : Oath of Secrecy Required of Victims by Vatican

The Sunday Times
February 21, 2010
Justine McCarthy: We can’t have faith in a church with these leaders
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7034885.ece

For the people who run the Vatican these days to present themselves as unaligned and uncontaminated watchdogs patrolling the safety of the faithful in Ireland against the criminal negligence of the bishops is redolent of the days when the IRA and Sinn Fein protested that they were two separate and distinct organisations. The catalyst for 24 Irish bishops travelling to Rome last week was, supposedly, Judge Yvonne Murphy’s exposure of a cover-up of child sexual abuse by priests. Inherently salient to that cover-up was a Vatican document entitled Crimen Sollicitationis, which deals with the sin of soliciting in the confessional and extends its jurisdiction to the “worst crime” of child sexual abuse in a small paragraph at the back of the document. It rules that anyone making an accusation against a priest must take an oath of secrecy, as Marie Collins, who was abused by a priest in Crumlin children’s hospital, has attested happened to her.
When the Murphy Commission wrote to the CDF in September 2006, the year after Levada’s appointment as prefect by Benedict, it requested information about the promulgation of Crimen Sollicitationis. The CDF did not reply. It wrote instead to the Department of Foreign Affairs, bleating that the commission was flouting diplomatic protocols, despite the commission being independent of the government. "
justine.mccarthy@sunday-times.ie