The Vatican was so angry at what it regarded as politically-driven attempts to draw it into the Irish child abuse scandal involving Catholic bishops that it refused to cooperate with investigations putting the Irish government in an awkward position, according to secret American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

Requests from the Murphy Commission investigating the scandal reportedly infuriated the Vatican which saw the move as an “affront'' to its sovereignty.

“The Murphy Commission's requests offended many in the Vatican…because they saw them as an affront to Vatican sovereignty,'' one cable , published by The Guardian on Saturday, says adding Vatican officials were also “angered'' over being approached by the Commission directly instead of coming through diplomatic channels .

Ultimately, after much behind-the-scenes diplomacy, the Irish Government gave into “pressure'' from the Vatican and granted its officials immunity from testifying. Later, the Irish cardinal Sean Brady and the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin went to Rome and met the Pope.

After the meeting which was also attended by a group of senior cardinals, the Vatican issued a statement expressing the Pope's “outrage, betrayal and shame'' over the conduct of Irish Catholic priests who had abused children in their care.

In one cable, Irish Ambassador to the Vatican Noel Fahey is reported telling an American diplomat Julieta Valls Noyes that the child sex abuse case was the most difficult crisis he had handled.

The cables also show that there was concern in the Vatican over how the issue would play out politically.

“Adding insult to injury, Vatican officials also believed some Irish opposition politicians were making political hay with the situation by calling publicly on the government to demand that the Vatican reply,” says one cables.

In its report in 2009, the Murphy Commission upheld many of the allegations of abuse and cover-up of by Church authorities over three decades.