On New Allegations Of Cover Up in Ireland The Vatican Reacts

I have come to the point that any reporting about the Vatican I take with a huge grain of salt. My general rule after observing this for five years is not get flustered on what I hear I first. That is wait 48 to 72 hrs and needed clarity will come.

This was my response yesterday to the latest "smoking gun" dealing with Ireland , sexual abuse of children , and the Holy See.

I caught wind of this right before it hit the AP and before it hit of course the NYT here in the States.

I knew enough about the facts to realize that this was not likely to be the "smoking gun" so many people thought.

That being said I have wrote for a few years that the media obsession with Pope Benedict like he was the Vice President of the Catholic Church under John Paul the II was silly. They really needed to look at other Curia departments that had at time jurisdictions on these matters. Well it appears they are.

However the headlines are again misleading and as usual the truth is a lot more complicated.

Wait you are a Catholic Hack you say? While are you defending the indefensible? I can hear it now.

As to Catholic and Vatican reporting no one and I mean no one questions the integrity of reporter John Allen. I very much trust him over the writers at the NYT to give me the low down on what is going on. Therefore see his piece Is Vatican letter on abuse a 'smoking gun'?

If people wish to say that Allen is blindly defending the Holy See after reading that then they will have to make that case.

Also see Vatican did not tell bishops to cover up abuse cases, spokesman says

I strong suggest you read this piece by Jimmy Akin here at the National Catholic Register. (there is not much there I disagree with).

OSV also has a piece that I think is balanced and fair. See via OSV New report confirms divisions in how Vatican officials were responding to clergy abuse cases in 1990s.

In that piece they mentioned Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos who is a controversy himself in all this. Let me add one thing to the remarks they make on him. Cardinal Hoyos is of an age and from a region where the State can and will be the active persecuting enemy of the Church. I think that is why the red flag was raised to him as to ""mandatory" reporting of suspicions to the Civil authorities. In fact look at the situation with the Church and Hugo Chavez right now and you get a sense of where he is coming from. Later I hope to get into to where I think Hoyes was very misguided of course in many regards. I don't intend to absolve him of everything here.

Again look at Akin's piece I link above to get a better picture. I am not saying Hoyos handled this right but I see where at LEAST in this case his causes for concern.

In the background and even in the reporting that has given rise to this latest to this latest "smoking gun" one can sense a real battle royale is going on in the Holy See on how to handle this. That is should the Vatican be place where "everyone gets their day in Court" and let the local Bishops handle matters on the ground including prevention. Or should the Holy See itself take some rather direct steps to intervene. More on that late

I am going to wait till I see tomorrow's papers untill comment more on this. I will intend to show where I think the Church messed up in this whole tragic episode of sexaul child abuse and why it happened.