IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 3 May 2012
While the BBC has produced fresh evidence against Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in relation to the sex abuse carried out by notorious priest, Fr Brendan Smyth, the fundamental problem for the Primate is unchanged.
He may argue that he did nothing wrong and that his involvement in the interviewing of two victims of the priest were minimal and that he now regrets the culture of silence within the Church at that time. Yet many will feel that is a weak defence.
The Cardinal – who was then simply a priest – was given the names of children at risk from Fr Smyth and while he passed those on to superiors in the Church, neither the police nor the parents were informed.
Cardinal Brady may feel that it was not his role at that time to alert either, yet most right-minded people will regard it as shameful that a Christian organisation should continue to leave some of its most vulnerable flock – children – at risk from a paedophile.
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