Vatican Told Irish Church Not to Report Sex Abuse to Police

A 1997 letter to Ireland’s bishops asserted it was the right of the church to handle sex abuse cases without disclosing them to civil authorities.

Activists are calling the letter a “smoking gun,” and say it’s proof that the Vatican not only sanctioned the protection of pedophile priests from criminal prosecution, it outright ordered it. The letter was written by Pope John Paul II’s diplomat to Ireland in response to an initiative the Irish church launched in the mid-1990s to cooperate with police investigations into sexual abuse committed by priests, and was leaked to news outlets by an Irish bishop. The revelation could have wide-ranging impact on the outcome of dozens lawsuits pending against the church around the world, because the letter makes clear that keeping sexual abuse allegations within the church is a matter of canonical law to be applied in all jurisdictions.