(November 12, 2010) The Vatican is moving ahead with its own investigation of how
the Catholic Church in Ireland is responding to its massive sex abuse scandal. It
promises the probe called ‘Apostolic Visitation” will be sweeping but not interfere
with ongoing probes by magistrates or a parliamentary commission. A Vatican statement
released on Friday said that it is not an investigation of individual cases or “a
trial to judge past events” but a pastoral effort to verify the effectiveness of the
Church's response to scandal and its assistance to victims. Pope Benedict XVI announced
the investigation in a letter to Irish Catholics in March, addressing chronic abuse
and decades of cover-up by church authorities. The Pope appointed a team of top prelates
and nuns for the investigation that will begin in four archdioceses of the country
as well as in seminaries and convents. The first phase of the inquiry should be completed
by Easter 2011, so that the results can be studied in May.