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Irish Cardinal Rejects Resignation Calls over His Role in Abuse Inquiry

Vatican Insider
May 3, 2012

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/irlanda-ireland-14838/

The Cardinal Sean Brady

Revelations by a BBC program that a boy abused by a priest gave a 1975 Irish Church Inquiry the names of several boys and girls being abused by the same priest have led to new calls for the resignation of Cardinal Brady, a notary at that inquiry. Many think he had an obligation then to inform the children’s parents, and blame him for not doing so

Ireland’s Cardinal Sean Brady has rejected new calls for his resignation following a BBC TV program which he accuses of “seriously misrepresenting” his role in a 1975 Church inquiry into the abuse of children by the late Father Brendan Smyth, a member of the Norbertine religious order, who abused very many children over forty years.

The BBC broadcast the program, “The shame of the Catholic Church” on May 1 in Northern Ireland and on May 2 in the UK.

It recalled how in 1975, the future cardinal, then a young priest, participated in a Church Inquiry that interviewed a 14 year-old boy, Brendan Boland, under oath of secrecy, without his parents being present. Based notes made by Brady then, the BBC revealed that the boy had not only described his own abuse by Smyth, but also gave the names and addresses of two other boys and two girls who suffered a similar fate.

The BBC said Fr. Brady subsequently likewise interviewed one of the other boys, and finding that his testimony corroborated Boland’s, he became convinced that Smyth had to be stopped.

Fr. Brady then submitted the report to his bishop, who would present the findings to the Abbot of the Norbertine Order at Kilnacrott - the superior of Fr. Smyth, who was expected to take appropriate action. At that point the future cardinal believed he had fulfilled his duty under Church law, and took no further action. Smyth went on to abuse the second boy for a year, and his sister for seven years, and after that the boy’s four younger cousins, over a 13 year-period.

The BBC program charged that by not informing the children’s parents, the future cardinal failed to take the necessary steps to prevent their subsequent abuse.

On May 2, Cardinal Brady issued a statement charging that the previous evening’s BBC program made claims “which overstate and seriously misrepresent my role” in the 1975 Church Inquiry. He said that on March 15 he had provided the program makers with “important facts” relating to the 1975 inquiry “which the program failed to report”. He listed those points.

He said the BBC’s suggestion that he “had led the investigation” into allegations against Smyth “is seriously misleading and untrue” and explained that at his Bishop’s request he had assisted others, more senior than he, in the 1975 interview of Boland, in the role of ‘a notary’ or ‘note taker’.

“I did not formulate the questions asked in the Inquiry process. I did not put these questions to Mr. Boland. I simply recorded the answers he gave”, he stated. He confirmed that he had subsequently interviewed a second boy named by Boland.

He denied the BBC’s suggestion that he had somehow power to stop Fr. Smyth in 1975. “I had absolutely no authority over Brendan Smyth. Even my Bishop had limited authority over him. The only people who had authority within the Church to stop Brendan Smyth from having contact with children were his Abbot in the Monastery in Kilnacrott and his Religious Superiors in the Norbertine Order.”

He said Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had confirmed this in an interview with Irish RTE Radio on May 2. Furthermore, he said Scicluna had also told the BBC program makers six weeks before the broadcast that, 'in 1975 Fr Brady, now Cardinal Brady, acted promptly and with determination to ensure the allegations being made by the children were believed and acted upon by his superiors. His actions were fully consistent with his duties under canon law.” Scicluna also confirmed that the responsibility for stopping Fr. Smyth rested with the Abbot of the Norbertine Order and its Superiors.

In his statement, Cardinal Brady said: “ I was shocked, appalled and outraged when I first discovered in the mid 1990s that Brendan Smyth had gone on to abuse others. I assumed and trusted that when Bishop McKiernan brought the evidence to the Abbot of Kilnacrott that the Abbot would then have dealt decisively with Brendan Smyth and prevented him from abusing others.”

Like others, he said, “I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them.”

But significantly the cardinal admitted: “I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past.”

As for the other children named in the 1975 Inquiry, he confirmed, “I had no further involvement in the Inquiry process once I handed over the evidence taken. I trusted that those with the authority to act in relation to Brendan Smyth.”

In a May 2 interview on Ireland’s RTE TV the cardinal repeated that he had fully carried out his duty in accordance with Canon Law, but the interviewer kept raising the question many people are asking: whether, above and beyond his duty under Canon Law, did he not have any other moral obligation as a human being, as a priest, to inform the children’s parents?

When in 2010 news first broke of Brady’s involvement in the 1975 interrogation, many called for his resignation. Sources say his first reaction then was to resign, but he was convinced not to by friends in Ireland and people in Rome.

At that time, however, it was not known that the 14 year- old Boland had given the names and addresses of other boys and girls who were being abused by Smyth. This new evidence revealed by the BBC has made the cardinal’s situation more problematic in the eyes of public opinion Ireland, and there have been new calls for his resignation. He has rejected these too, drawing support from Mgr. Scicluna’s statement to the BBC that the Irish Church needs to have leaders like Brady, “who have learned the hard way and are determined to protect children.”

 

 

 

 

 




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