The Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny surprised most people in Ireland, and further afield, by his hard-hitting statement in parliament on the report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne last week.
The surprise was that his main focus was not so much on the main Irish culprits criticised in the report (Bishop John Magee and his Vicar General, Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan, charged with investigating complaints of clerical child sexual abuse), but on the Vatican itself.
In undiplomatic language Kenny stated that the Report 'excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism [and] narcissism ... that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day ... The rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation'.'
He supports this serious charge by the claim that 'for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual-abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an Inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic ... as little as three years ago, not three decades ago'.
It is clear that, whatever about the nuances of the allegations made — there is, for example, some puzzlement about his reference to Vatican interference 'as little as three years ago' — Kenny has articulated well the anger of the Irish people towards the Vatican.
His speech was a clear, watershed statement of attitude — this new Government is adopting a less deferential attitude to the Church and the Vatican. This has been welcomed not just by the victims of clerical sexual abuse but also, it would seem at this early stage, by the majority of the general public.
It is true, as some have alleged, that Kenny did not require great political courage to articulate this new position — in Ireland the already greatly weakened Church is an easy target and an attack upon it is bound to garner popular support. However Kenny's sincere position as a practising Catholic offsets the charges of political opportunism.
It is true also, as some critics of Kenny's speech have noted, that the Cloyne Report itself is not at all as critical of the Vatican as Kenny himself, limiting itself in the main to comments about the Vatican 1997 response to the 1996 Framework Document of the Irish Bishops.
The report notes that this response was 'entirely unhelpful' and 'gave comfort and support to those who ... dissented from the stated official Irish