BishopAccountability.org
	Cardinal Brady Must Go Offaly Express March 18, 2010 http://www.offalyexpress.ie/15082/Cardinal-Brady-must-go.6163422.jp IRELAND -- LIKE many once vaunted institutions in this country the chickens have come home to roost for the Catholic church, with a vengeance. The St Patrick's Day festivities take place this week amidst the wreckage wrought by the mismanagement, greed and stupidity from those in authority in politics, business, the banks and the church. The moment of truth has now come for the Catholic Church, both here and abroad, as its years of obsfuscation and secrecy in the face of clerical abuse scandals is being laid bare in all its infamy. New abuse inquiries are now underway in Germany, The Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, denoting the extent to which the clerical abuse scandal has contaminated the entire body politic of the church. What is happening is without precedent, reaching as it now does all the way to a Pope. Meanwhile, Cardinal Sean Brady is this week insisting on retaining his position, despite information which renders his continuance in office utterly untenable. Even if he does manage to hang on, he will do so without any shred of moral authority. He, and the Church he represents, has been tarnished beyond repair. And most of it has been self inflicted. In the case of Fr Brendan Smyth, the church authorities decided that the matter would be dealt with internally. To achieve this a vow of silence was imposed on the abused. Such was the power of priests and bishops at the time that few had the courage to question their decisions. Had the Gardai or health board been informed of Fr Brendan Smyth, then his subsequent 18-year reign of terror and destruction could have been ended. Cardinal Brady, then a priest, was involved in this, and it is beyond tragedy what happened. The truly awful thing in this scandal is the seeming total lack of awareness on behalf of the church of the damage it has wrought to the innocent, and continually to itself. Cardinal Brady can cite canon law and the failure of others, but this is missing the point, and amounts to splitting straws. In the coming days we can expect the usualy rallying around Brady from the Irish Bishops, some of whom should have resigned in the wake of the Murphy and Ryan reports. The best one could hope for now is a domino effect, which would topple them all. The Murphy Report found that the Dublin archdiocese's preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse "at least until the mid-1990s were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities." Sadly this mindset, or a variant of it, continues to inform the actions and policies of the catholic church in relation to clerical abuse.
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