[caption id="attachment_66703" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Eamon Gilmore"]
Taoiseach Enda Kenny is standing by his recent unprecedented verbal attack on the Vatican while Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has accused the Vatican of "missing the point" after the Holy See last weekend rejected claims that it had frustrated an Irish state inquiry into clerical abuse.
Mr. Gilmore said the real issue was how the Catholic church "did not deal effectively" with pedophile priests. He was speaking after the Vatican took issue with Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who said in the Dáil in July that the church had attempted to block the Cloyne investigation.
In its formal response to the Irish government's accusations, the Holy See said it "in no way hampered or interfered" with the inquiry into abuse cover-ups.
But Mr. Gilmore this week deepened the diplomatic row by forcefully backing Mr. Kenny.
"I think it probably misses the point," Gilmore said of the Vatican's response.
"There was the most horrific sexual abuse of children perpetrated by clerics. The Catholic church did not deal with that as it should have dealt with it. Let's not be distracted, let's not miss the point, no less charges were made. The taoiseach and the government stand over what was said."
In a blistering attack in the Dáil on July 20, Mr. Kenny accused the Holy See of downplaying the rape and torture of children by clerical sex abusers while trying to frustrate the inquiry into the handling of child abuse allegations in the Cork diocese of Cloyne.
The Vatican responded on Saturday with a 25-page document rejecting accusations of interference.
It stated: "In particular, the accusation that the Holy See attempted 'to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago', which Mr. Kenny made no attempt to substantiate, is unfounded."
The Cloyne report was the fourth major report in six years into the church's cover-ups of clerical abuse. Former bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, a Vatican aide to three popes, was singled out in the report for "misleading" investigators and "dangerous failures" on child protection. His resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict last year.
Mr. Gilmore said Kenny had been "speaking for the government and the people of this country," when he had spoken in the Dáil.
"The abuse of children is not acceptable. The abuse of children is intolerable," he said.
"Those who didn't discharge their responsibility to make sure that it stopped, or that those who were responsible for it were brought to book, they have a case to answer and the government makes no apology for stating that in the unambiguous terms that it was stated by the taoiseach."
Mr. Kenny himself stated that the Holy See had three times stymied requests for information from investigations into pedophile priests and insisted nothing less than full cooperation was required.
"I made the point that this is a statutory commission of inquiry and as such nothing less than full cooperation is required, and anything less than full cooperation in my view is unwarranted interference.
"As a member of the Catholic Church I want to see the church of which I am a member as absolutely above reproach in the issue of this and other areas. And for that reason, my claim in the Dáil still stands, because this was a statutory commission of inquiry," the taoiseach said in the aftermath of the Vatican response.
"And in 2006, and 2007 and in 2009 there were requests for information and assistance to the Vatican by the Murphy Commission and in each of these cases that request was either refused or rejected," Kenny added.
After his Dáil statement, the papal nuncio in Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, was recalled to Rome.
Meanwhile, the cabinet is expected to discuss the latest Vatican document when it meets on Thursday in advance of the new Dáil session.
