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	Brady Urged to Admit 'Cover-Up' Mistake UTV March 15, 2010 http://www.u.tv/News/Brady-urged-to-admit-%E2%80%98cover-up-mistake/0306d22e-47a4-4e16-bc97-ff998986e034 IRELAND -- A victim whose four children were sexually abused by Father Brendan Smyth in 1975 has told UTV he wants the Head of the Catholic Church in Ireland to resign over the cover up-allegations. On Sunday, Cardinal Sean Brady confirmed he was present at a 1975 meeting where two teenagers abused by Father Smyth were asked to take a vow of silence. The then Fr Brady was a part-time secretary to the late Bishop Francis McKiernan when he interviewed two of Smyth's young victims, who were made to sign the oath of secrecy. A victims' father, who wants only to be known as Seamus, told UTV: "The survivors would get a lot of hope out of the fact that he is resigning and he owns up to the fact that he made a terrible mistake and that the welfare of the survivors and victims wasn't considered by him or anyone else". "He did everything that was required from him within his position with the Catholic Church as he was a young priest and the hierarchy and the bishops pulled the strings and he danced accordingly", Seamus added. "He was told to keep this quiet, to get those two children to sign a confidentiality clause and then walked away from it". Cardinal Brady, who is being sued by one of the Smyth's victims in Dublin's High Court, has maintained there was no cover-up when he carried out his investigations 35 years ago. "I did act and acted effectively in that inquiry to produce the grounds for removing Fr Smyth from ministry and specifically it was underlined he was not to hear confessions, and that was very important," he said on Sunday. On Monday, Cardinal Brady again defended his role at the 1975 meeting, resisting calls for his resignation. Asked why he did not see it as a moral obligation to ensure the police were alerted, the Catholic primate said: "Yes, I knew that these were crimes, but I did not feel that it was my responsibility to denounce the actions of Brendan Smyth to the police." He said he had helped gather evidence for the church to stop Smyth operating as a priest, and that it was the relevant bishop, plus Smyth's religious order, who had responsibility for the case. "Now I know with hindsight that I should have done more, but I thought at the time I was doing what I was required to do", he said in a BBC interview. "I will only resign if asked by the Holy Father." "Thirty-five years ago we were in a different world. We had no guidance, we were in uncharted territory. Now we have higher standards, thankfully," he told RTE Radio. "Certainly I would not act in the same way now as I did then." An American lawyer abused by Father Brendan Smyth Smyth in the 1960s when she was just six said Cardinal Brady Cardinal should be charged for obstruction of justice. "If this is not the obstruction of justice I don't know what is," Helen McGonagle said. "Swearing victims to an oath of secrecy and maintaining secrecy and saying that the canon law supersedes civil law and that we're to maintain a vow of silence while others can be harmed. That cannot be tolerated. "That's grave injustice." The Father Brendan Smyth case rocked the church and the Irish Government, which collapsed in 1994 over delays in granting his extradition to Northern Ireland to face sex abuse charges. It was not until the broadcast of a UTV documentary in 1994 on Smyth's history of serial child sex abuse that the church admitted it had known about his paedophilia and had moved him around Ireland, Britain and the United States, where he was able to continue to abuse other children. Amnesty International said the latest revelations underlined the need for a Northern Ireland inquiry into child abuse. "Whatever happens about the future of Cardinal Brady, the Northern Ireland Executive has an urgent and overriding obligation to institute a thorough investigation of child abuse both inside and outside Church-run institutions within this jurisdiction", Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Programme Director of Amnesty International, said. Three months ago Cardinal Sean Brady insisted he would resign if his failure to act had allowed or meant any children were sexually abused by a paedophile priest.
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