Enda Kenny’s Vatican attack gains worldwide momentum

Enda Kenny’s unexpectedly stringent Dáil speech against the Vatican’s role in the failure to adequately investigate clerical child sexual abuse has gained headlines all over the world.

In a report filed by the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle described Kenny’s speech as “an unprecedented denunciation of the Holy See's influence in this predominantly Catholic country”.

In a blog post on the speech, the BBC’s Mark Simpson stated: “The age of deference is long gone.”

He wrote: “The blistering attack on the Vatican by Taoiseach Enda Kenny epitomises the dramatic transformation of Irish society in recent years. As well as being more secular, Ireland is also more liberal, more open and more pluralist.”

Under the headline “The Political Speech of the Year” on the website of the influential Spectator magazine in the UK, Alex Massie described Kenny’s 12-minute speech as “astonishing”.

He added, “At long last a senior politician, responding in this instance to the Cloyne report into clerical child abuse in that diocese and the church's willingness to cover that abuse up, has stood up to the habitual denial, obstructionism and duplicity of the church in these matters."

The New York Times, CNN, examiner.com and The Australian were among dozens of other major outlets around the world to report Kenny’s riposte against the Catholic Church authorities.

You can listen to the entire thing here: