Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent, London, \u00a07 Aug 2018<\/p>\n
Mary McAleese says approach came while inquiries into child abuse involving Catholic church were under way<\/em><\/p>\n The Vatican<\/a> sought a deal with the Irish state in 2003 to keep church archives closed, according to former president Mary McAleese.<\/p>\n The approach from the Vatican came at a time when two statutory inquiries were under way into child abuse involving the Catholic church.<\/p>\n McAleese said the matter was raised with her during a private meeting with a high-ranking Vatican official while she was on a state visit to Italy.<\/p>\n It was \u201cone of the most devastating moments of my presidency\u201d, she told the Irish Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to McAleese\u2019s account, Angelo Sodano, then Vatican secretary of state, \u201cindicated he would like, and the Vatican would like, an agreement with Ireland<\/a>, a concordat with Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cI asked him why and it was very clear that it was because he wanted to protect Vatican and diocesan archives. I have to say that I immediately said the conversation had to stop.<\/p>\n \u201cI told him it was inappropriate and very, very dangerous for the church if it was pursued.\u201d<\/p>\n McAleese was unhappy at the issue being raised with her in private. She asked Monsignor Joe Murphy, who was then Sodano\u2019s secretary and was present at the meeting along with an Irish government official and McAleese\u2019s husband, to explain to the secretary of state that the church in Ireland was \u201con the back foot\u201d, and that if the matter was pursued it would be \u201cflat on its back\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the matter was dropped there and I never heard any mention of it again,\u201d McAleese said.<\/p>\n At the time, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was investigating the treatment of children in institutions run by religious orders, while a separate statutory inquiry was investigating clerical sexual abuse in Ferns diocese.<\/p>\n McAleese claimed that Sodano was asking for an agreement under which the Irish state would have no access to church documents.<\/p>\n