The Irish Government’s official report into the handling of child-abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Dublin has shone a shaft of light into some very dark corners. It is to the credit of the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, that it was only able to do so because he adopted a policy of total cooperation and transparency, searingly painful though the results have been. It is clear from the report that what motivated the actions of senior clergy over decades was the desire to protect the Church’s good name at all costs. This was a grievous and shameful miscalculation – it often left abusers free to abuse again, it put hundreds of children in harm’s way. Many of them, now adults, are psychologically scarred for life.

There is one element in the equation, however, that was beyond the report’s terms of reference, although it is alluded to. The Holy See also played a significant role, which in some ways may have compounded the problem. Were the various institutions of the Vatican inept in their handling of allegations of child abuse by clergy, not just from Ireland but elsewhere? At one point, for example, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had such a backlog of cases that it decided to leave individual dioceses to deal with them. If it thought that meant disciplinary proceedings would be brought under canon law before diocesan tribunals, however, it was mistaken. The tribunals were not equipped to deal with them and were preoccupied with marriage annulment cases; the culture of the Church at that time favoured “pastoral solutions” to allegations of clergy misconduct rather than legal proceedings; and in a few cases where proceedings did take place, the disturbing discovery was made that paedophilia, as a mental disorder, actually constituted a defence in canon law because a paedophile’s actions could be deemed involuntary. In any event, canon law seems to have been in a state of uncertainty and confusion. One key document, ...

The recent ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and first steps towards its implementation were a major step forward in the development of the European Union. And what is good for the EU should be good for Britain. But where were the celebrations, the rousing speeches from politicians, the multi-page supplements in the newspapers, the hour-long documentaries on television? Instead, Britain greeted this landmark event ...

In 1984 the then-Lutheran (later Catholic) American polemicist Richard Neuhaus published his book The Naked Public Square, a counter-attack on those who were trying to use the American First Amendment about the separation of Church and State to make religion disappear from public visibility. The Naked Public Square quickly became something of a cult in America. But from a British perspective at the time it seemed far-fetched. ...

The apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus has now been published by the Holy See, and no one will read it more avidly than members of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England and Anglicans of similar mind abroad. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome has devised it, with Pope Benedict XVI’s blessing, to meet the needs of Anglicans who wish to preserve some of their traditions and ...

What is a crucifix? It is not a symbol of the almighty power of the Catholic Church, but a representation of one innocent man’s agonising death at the hands of the state, after torture and a sham trial – in other words, a gross human-rights violation. Catholics believe that that innocent man is also the Son of God, but the depiction is realistic, not metaphysical. The decision of the European Court of Human ...