IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter
Michael Kelly Catholic News Service | Jul. 7, 2014
DUBLIN One of the Irish survivors of clerical sexual abuse who met Pope Francis on Monday described the encounter as a “huge vindication” for her.
The victim, Marie Kane, also asked the pope to remove Cardinal Sean Brady as archbishop of Armagh, Northern Ireland.
Brady was the subject of sharp criticism after a 2012 documentary revealed that he had been involved in a 1975 canonical inquiry into a notorious abuser-priest, Norbertine Fr. Brendan Smyth. Despite the canonical process, Smyth evaded the civil authorities for decades and went on to abuse in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and the United States before finally being arrested in 1994.
Kane, 43, told Ireland’s state-run radio RTE that she asked Pope Francis to remove Brady because of his handling of a clerical child abuse inquiry in 1975.
“It’s a big thing with me that there are still members of the hierarchy there who were involved in the cover-up. I feel personally they [the church] cannot contemplate any change happening, there will be no success,” as long as such people remained in place, she said.
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