IRELAND
Irish Examiner
By Dan Buckley
‘Sworn to Silence’ a recollectuion of the clerical abuse of a boy, reflects on blame and shame in 1970s Ireland, says Dan Buckley
BLESS me, Father, for I have sinned.
Those are the words that the Catholic Church authorities in Ireland expected of a 14-year-old boy as his response to years of abuse by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.
“I knew that the quizzing about confession was all about me and my fault,” says Brendan Boland, now 53, in Sworn To Silence, his memoir published today.
It was three years before he plucked up the courage to tell another priest. An inquiry was quickly called in which Brendan was subjected to a barrage of questions from three priests, among them Fr John Brady — later to become primate Cardinal Seán Brady.
Sworn To Silence details the highly intrusive and inappropriate questioning that the young lad was subjected to during the meeting.
“Then I was just terrified and scared. Today I am angry, furious,” Boland writes. “Even as I am recounting this, I want to smash my fist against the bloody wall beside me.”
Smyth was later uncovered as the most notorious child abuser in the Irish Catholic Church, carrying out more than 130 sexual assaults against 40 youngsters over 20 years. He later died in jail.
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