Atlantic Seepage

National Survivor Advocates Coalition
June 2, 2012

http://nationalsurvivoradvocatescoalition.wordpress.com/nsacireland/

Every layer they strip

Seems camped on before.

The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.

The wet centre is bottomless.

Seamus Heaney, the “Bogland”

The National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) stands on the sod of Ireland to bear witness to the incredible courage of the children raped, sodomized, and demeaned from whom childhood was cruelly and crudely ripped asunder by molesting priests and nuns in Irish parishes, schools and orphanages.

When we lived in the void of unknowing before the survivors’ truth penetrated our consciousness, Seamus Heaney’s portrait of Ireland’s bogs might have simply been stunning poetry.

Not today.

Today they are heavy with Irish melancholy that moans without ceasing for deliverance from the fraud of self-preservation over genuine leadership for justice and the protection of children.

We speak of two prelates – one on each side of the Atlantic, — two Irishmen — the Cardinal Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady and the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, former Archbishop of Milwaukee, and current president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Timothy Dolan.

Atlantic seepage indeed.

Cardinal Brady, who has chosen the pedantic response to the rape and sodomy of children, speaks most vigorously not for justice for children robbed of childhood by the vilest of crimes but to defend his own position.

A recent BBC This World documentary revealed that Cardinal Brady when he was a priest and teacher was part of an investigation on behalf of his bishop into charges of sexual abuse by Brendan Smyth, whom the world would later come to know as the most prolific of the known Ireland clerical pedophiles.

Brady, the BBC documentary revealed, when he gained knowledge of Smyth took no action inform parents or parishioners. He says he thought his superiors would.

He has characterized his role in the investigation of Smyth as a note taker.

He defends his action by saying, “In 1975 no State or Church guidelines existed in the Republic of Ireland to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor.” (The investigation took place in 1975).

And this man holds the highest clerical office in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. His defense is that he was bereft of a pamphlet of guidelines for how to act when a child body is torn apart by rape, when a child’s psyche is battered harder than the Atlantic’s waves pound Skellig Michael, when a child is seared by sodomy?

Guidelines? How about the Scriptures?

In his famine of principles, could ethics and morality at least have been served up in side dish portions?

NSAC calls on Cardinal Brady to discard the fig leaf of face saving in a two year hide behind a almost certainly to be appointed coadjutor bishop for a safe steerage into a mandatory retirement age resignation.

To resign is the least Cardinal Brady can do.

The least he can do to honor the courage of Helen McGonigle, who became a victim of Brendan Smyth, at the age of 6 in Rhode Ireland – and for her sister, also victimized who committed suicide.

We have touched this scarred and wounded earth, called Ireland, in an act of reverence for Helen McGonigle’s courage and in her sister’s memory – for them and for all of the victims of the horrors of Smyth who traveled the world, courtesy of perpetrator transfer travels.

On the other side of the Atlantic comes word today that the United States’ newest Cardinal, while he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, invented a payoff system for priest perpetrators who voluntarily agreed to laicization to the tune of $20,000.

We call our readers’ attention to the Minutes of the March 7, 2003 Archdiocese of Milwaukee Finance Council Meeting.

[Here is the link: Archdiocese of Milwaukee Finance Council Minutes]

The minutes include this paragraph:

“Currently unassignable priests are receiving full salaries and are budgeted under the Vicar for Clergy. There is a proposal to reduce their benefit to be the same as the current pension benefit, $1,250 per month and also offer $20,000 for laicization ($10,000 at the start and $10,000 at the completion of the process). Also, they remain on our health insurance until they find other employment. The final effect of all this is not known at this time and it may be awash with the current budget.”

So, if you were a priest perpetrator in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee during Archbishop Dolan’s tenure you were staked with at least $10,000 and a possible $20,000 to get out and get lost.

This was on top of whatever amount of money you collected while you were on paid vacation or receiving pension benefits as a coyly categorized “unassignable” priest.

This is a children protection policy?

Vatican action on ridding the priesthood of rapists and sodomites worked too slow for Dolan it appeared. A call to the local police station wouldn’t have involved near the paperwork that a laicization case would. A call to the police station would also have saved the good Catholics of Milwaukee from tossing $20,000 bouquets at “unassignable” priests to use the clever language of deceit and deflection.

We are given to believe that no one on the diocesan Finance Council objected to this scheme, including the Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba. The same auxiliary bishop who did not object to the previous Archbishop Rembert Weakland, lifting nearly a half million dollars from the good Catholics of Milwaukee to pay off a former lover.

The $20,000 per willing perpetrator that Dolan was so willing to dole out we remind our readers came from the collection baskets of the parishes of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee through the diocesan assessment. There is no tooth fairy for diocesan coffers. This money came from the wallets, the purses, and the coin jars of in the pew Catholics.

We called our readers attention again to the date of this meeting: March 7, 2003. The crisis in its Boston’s incarnation broke on January 6, 2002.

If Dolan was holding open an exit door for perpetrators with a gilded carrot, what else was he doing?

How many payoffs were there?

What else had a dollar sign attached to it?

Nothing short of the full release of records is called for in these circumstances.