May 8, 2012  
                                  Martin Mallon   (Ireland)                          Martin's previous article

 

Cardinal Sean Brady

 

The Irish news media has been full of the Cardinal Sean Brady/Fr Brendan Smyth story due to further revelations, in the BBC programme “The Shame of the Catholic Church”, about the then Father Brady’s role in the Fr Brendan Smyth case. In 1975 one boy, fourteen year old Brendan Boland, told Fr Brady and two other priests that Smyth was abusing him and he named another two boys and three girls who were also being abused, giving their names and addresses. Fr Brady got confirmation from another boy, co-signed letters with the two boys individually which swore both to secrecy, then passed the information to his bishop who had asked him to investigate the affair. 

Smyth went on to abuse one of the boys for a number of years, then the boy’s sister and four cousins into the late 1980s. 
The parents’ of the second boy, who was sworn to secrecy, were not informed nor were the parents of the other named children.
 

A US lawyer, Ms Helen McGonigle, was abused by Smyth in Rhode Island in the late 1960s and her family was devastated. She told the BBC that she was “outraged” by Brady’s attitude, that it was his “duty as a human” to protect children and that his inaction regarding Boland’s complaint was “unforgivable”. 

Cardinal Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, maintains he followed canon law and the bishop was the only one he had to tell; not the police nor the parents of the children.  

Despite widespread calls for his resignation, including most of the political leaders in Ireland, Cardinal Brady says he will not resign. The Promoter of Justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican expert in this area, agrees that Brady did all required under canon law and that there is no need for him to resign, saying “ I think he fulfilled his duty well.”  

Marie Collins, a clerical abuse survivor, commented that Cardinal Brady “should have had a conscience”. She also pointed out that Msgr Scicluna had done a 360 degree about turn on his views regarding clerical child sexual abuse that he expressed to her at the “Towards Healing and Renewal” conference held, in February, at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.                           

The case of Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, whose resignation was refused by John Paul II, before finally being accepted, demonstrated that the Vatican does not want a Prince of the Church to admit he did wrong and resign. In addition, The International Eucharistic Congress is being held in Dublin from  June 10 to 17 and the resignation of Cardinal Brady could be very embarrassing for the Holy See if it occurred before then. 

An RTE afternoon radio show had a ten minute text poll on Friday May 4  asking whether the Cardinal should resign or not; 80% voted yes, 20% no, out of approximately 15000 votes. 

Everyone appears to agree that the Cardinal did all he should have done according to canon law. However, most people, unlike the Cardinal and the Vatican, believe the Cardinal had a duty to inform the children’s parents, the police and to ensure that Smyth was permanently out of commission.  

There is talk of police investigations north and south of the border and we could be faced with the strange situation of the Cardinal being found legally guilty while the Vatican maintains his innocence. Perhaps the Cardinal’s resignation could be the best solution for the Vatican in the long run, for the Irish Church now and certainly for the victims.

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