Whatever comes out of next week’s summit on child safeguarding in the Catholic Church, one issue needs urgent consideration in the Vatican itself. It concerns the role of papal diplomats. It has surfaced before, in Ireland and Australia; and it has emerged again in the course of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in Britain (IICSA). The inquiry has been focusing on Ealing Abbey in west London, and its attached school, St Benedict’s.

The evidence suggests that the nuncio, Archbishop Edward Adams, could have held documents that would have been helpful to the inquiry. He had referred IICSA’s request for information to the Vatican and was awaiting instructions. The Vatican was clearly in no hurry to supply them, which from the inquiry’s perspective could look like an attempt to obstruct its investigation.

IICSA was set up by the British government to examine the failure of various British institutions, including churches, to protect young people from the attention of paedophiles. One lawyer representing victims went so far as to propose that the nuncio should be expelled from Britain for his failure to cooperate.