Vatican must clear up child abuse scandal

A delegation of Irish bishops convenes today in Rome for two days of meetings with Pope Benedict XVI on the child abuse scandals involving the Irish clergy. The Irish Times calls on the Vatican to seize the initiative: "That the meetings in the Apostolic Palace in St Peter's are happening ... is surely a welcome implicit repudiation of suggestions from Rome that the crisis facing the Irish church is a domestic matter. ... The Vatican must go further, by opening its archives to show its own role in responding to sex abuse cases in Ireland instead of hiding behind the cloak of diplomatic protocol and 'sovereign immunity'. ... There are concerns that the Vatican's refusal to promulgate a mandatory worldwide code of conduct on child protection stems from fears of legally acknowledging, particularly to US courts, its authority over national churches, implicitly conceding that priests and bishops are actually its agents in a legal sense. Such an acknowledgment could have costly legal consequences."

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