Catholic Church and Accountability

Today the Pope has issued his pastoral letter on child sex abuse in Ireland. A lengthy letter (full version published here), it will take time to fully digest and analyse, and indeed this analysis could perhaps focus on numerous different aspects of the letter. In this blog entry I wish to focus on just one issue arising from the letter: accountability. In particular, it is possible through this letter to consider how the Pope appears to believe he and the Vatican connect to current problems in Ireland.

Despite what many may have wished for (the letter being promised since 13 December 2009) this letter does not accept any blame or accountability for the current scandal in Ireland. Instead we see an allocation of blame directly on the priests who offended and some senior members of the Church in Ireland who made leadership mistakes. The fault lies in Ireland, not in the Vatican. The word ‘we’ is nowhere to be seen in the discussions of the Church, the fault, the apology.