Rome’s Claims of Sovereignty Undermined
The Vatican claims that it is a sovereign state and therefore not subject to the laws of other sovereign states. This cherished claim received a blow recently when the US Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit to proceed, which accused the Vatican of concealing alleged sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest. The decision allows the case to return to the US District Court of Oregon.
It is reported that “the Irish government is studying the landmark decision by the US Supreme Court, which could have major implications for Ireland’s relations with the Vatican in the cover-up of paedophile clerics. Previous attempts to make the Papal Nuncio in Dublin appear in the High Court to answer charges of collusion with paedophile clerics . . . were declared inadmissible. This special status caused uproar last year when the Murphy Report into the cover-ups in Dublin complained that neither the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, nor the Papal Nuncio in Dublin, answered its queries.”
That the Roman Catholic Church should be subject to the laws of another country was also stated recently by the Belgian Foreign Minister, Steven Vanackere, when he stressed the Belgian judiciary’s independence from the Church and its freedom to investigate alleged criminality by priests. He was reacting to the Vatican’s protests against the Belgian Government for allowing police to raid a bishops’ meeting in Mechelen near Brussels in connection with a flood of new allegations of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in Belgium. Investigators confiscated mobile phones, computers and also seized the computer files of a former cardinal. Mr Vanackere added, “There are very elementary principles of having a separation of powers [of church and state] and accepting that the judiciary has to do its work. That’s crucial for every democratic state.”
However much the Vatican hides its crimes under its cloak of sovereign statehood, there is a sovereign God who reveals secrets (Dan 2:28). In His providence He is unveiling the papacy even now. May He hasten the day when there will be no hiding place whatever for Rome’s hideous crimes. NMR
The Claudy Bombing
Claudy, a village in Co Londonderry, was the scene of a deadly bomb attack in July 1972. Three car bombs were planted; there were nine fatalities and 30 other people were injured. The prime suspect was James Chesney, a Roman Catholic priest in a nearby area.
Last August, the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman presented an official report on how the matter was handled. He states that detectives believed that this priest was the IRA’s local director of operations at the time. Yet police at the highest level in the province refused to have the man arrested, fearful of the consequences in the Roman Catholic community. An Assistant Chief Constable wrote to the Northern Ireland Office in November 1972 saying that he had been considering “what action, if any, could be taken to render harmless a dangerous priest, Father Chesney”. He suggested: “Our masters may find it possible to bring the subject into any conversations they may be having with the cardinal or bishops at some future date”. One of these masters, William Whitelaw, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, accordingly colluded with Cardinal Conway, who was head of the Roman Church in Ireland, to have Chesney moved to a parish across the border, in Co Donegal. This is, of course, a favourite Roman ploy when priests are in trouble.
The following two comments from Protestant members of the Northern Ireland Assembly are entirely appropriate. First from Mr Ian McCrea: “The role of the Catholic Church in the IRA campaign has long been questioned with suspicion by many in Northern Ireland. This report goes a long way in heightening these suspicions and raises many questions over the role of the Church and what it knew about the involvement of its priests and other clergy in the facilitation and running of the IRA campaign”. The second is from Mr Jim Allister: “For all its piety and protestations that ‘murder is murder’, it is now clear the Catholic Church, in order to protect an IRA priest, was complicit in covering up mass murder in Claudy.” The British Government has apologised; Cardinal Sean Brady, the present senior Roman cleric in Ireland, has made excuses. A BBC report concluded: “For most people in Claudy, Fr Chesney will be for ever remembered as the priest who got away with murder”.