Church admits errors on sex abusers

By Gryer Moriarty
Irish Times
October 6, 1994

Belfast — The Catholic Church has established procedures aimed at preventing further indents of child sex abuse by priests and other religious, following the conviction earlier this year of a west Belfast priest on child abuse charges, the church has stated.

Cardinal Cahal Daly was aware for some years that there had been complaints against Father Brendan Smyth of the Norbertine Community, who was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in Belfas this year on child sex abuse charges, tonight's Counterpoint programme on UTV reports.

The programme highlights a letter which Cardinal Daly wrote in 1991 to the family of one of the victims, apologising for the distress caused by the priest and acknowledging that "there have been complaints before" about Cardinal Daly subsequently admitted that until recent years the church authorities, like many other bodies, were insufficiently aware of the terrible consequences, of paedophilia, and the element of compsiulon which drove offenders. He also stated that Father Smyth, as a Norbertine priest, was subject to his superiors' discipline, rather than to the Cardinal's.

Father Smyth's superior, Abbot Kevin Smith of the order's base at Ballyjamesduff Co Cavan, admitted to the programme that he had made "many errors".

The hour long programme, produced by Tony Curry with reporter Chris Moore, features several Belfast people who had allegedly been abused by Father Smyth over many years. According to Counterpoint it discovered that five of those abused by Father Smyth had broken marriages, and two had attempted suicide.

The programme also reports that the victims are seeking compensation. It further claims that Father Smyth, after he was reassigned to the US, committed further sexual abuse of children in Rhode Island and North Dakota.

One of the US victims was paid $ 20,000 by Father Smyth in compensation, the programme states. The abuses in Northern Ireland and the US were against both boys and girls.

Abbot Smith, in a letter to the programme, said that as Father Smyth's religious superior, based at the Holy Trinity Abbey in Kilnacrott, Ballyjamesduff, he acknowledged that he had made "many errors in dealing with his wrongdoing."

Abbot Smith also admits that on the two occasions that Father Smyth was temporarily assigned to parish work in the US, he himself failed to notify the relevant diocesan bishop that the priest had a propensity to molest children, and that this was "a grave error.

The abbot says he believed that the problem of Father Smyth, a member of the Norbertine Community since 1945, went back to his early religious life. At that time and afterwards frequent reassignment was the method now realised to be inadequate of dealing with such problems, he says.

The abbot also reports that the order initiated psychiatric treatment for Father Smyth on several occasions beginning in 1968.

Abbot Smith says the order has been "devastated" by Father Smyth's actions, and the suffering he caused. He says that after receiving complaints from one family in 1989 he was twice requested by the then Bishops of Down and Connor, Cardinal Cahal Daly and Dr Patrick Walsh, to "take appropriate steps to deal with Father Smyth's misconduct".

The abbot says when Father Smyth comes out of prison the Norbertine Community will ensure that he has such treatment as is advised, and that the order will be "alert to do all in our power to ensure that he has no further access to children."

Cardinal Daly, in his correspondence with Counterpoint, said that the bishops and religious superiors were actively and urgently engaged in a radical reappraisal of the problems presented by paedophilia.

He added: "I would willingly accept that until recent years church authorities, in common, I believe, with most people who had to deal with paedophilia and its consequences, were not sufficiently aware of the appalling consequences for the victim. Likewise the element of compulsion which appears to drive offenders was not adequately understood."