Cardinal Sean Brady in Sex Abuse CoverUp, by Justine McCarthy, Sunday Times, March 14, 2010

Cardinal Sean Brady in 'Sex Abuse Cover-Up'

By Justine McCarthy
Sunday Times
March 14, 2010

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7061133.ece

IRELAND -- Cardinal Seán Brady, the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, was involved in an alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse complaints against Brendan Smyth, Ireland's most notorious paedophile priest.

Brady, the archbishop of Armagh and primate of AllIreland, has confirmed to The Sunday Times that he attended a secret canonical tribunal, or internal church hearing, in 1975 at which two of Smyth's young victims were required to sign an undertaking on oath that they would not discuss what happened with anybody other than an approved priest.

Cardinal Sean Brady

Details about what transpired in the proceedings are likely to be disclosed in a High Court case initiated in 1997 by a woman who says that Smyth abused her. The case was last mentioned in December when Judge Eamon de Valera let the plaintiff amend her statement of claim. The woman claims she suffered assault, battery and bodily trespass by Smyth, and she names Brady as one of three defendants.

The cardinal is being sued both in his personal capacity, as a priest who took part in the canonical tribunal, and as the primate. The other two defendants are Gerard Cusack, prior of the Norbertines, Smyth's order, and Leo O'Reilly, bishop of Kilmore, the diocese where Smyth was based.

Brady, who led 24 Irish bishops to a meeting with the Pope in Rome last month in response to the Murphy report into sexual abuse by Dublin clerics, was a 36-year-old qualified canon lawyer and a teacher at St Patrick's College in Cavan when the alleged Smyth cover-up took place.

Paedophile priest Brendan Smyth

As secretary to the diocese of Kilmore, he acted as the recorder of the evidence on behalf of Francis McKiernan, then the bishop, at one tribunal session on March 29, 1975. At a second meeting on April 4 the same year, he questioned witnesses and recorded their answers.

The hearings were held behind closed doors at the Dominican friary in Dundalk, Co Louth, and at Smyth's Norbertine order's Holy Trinity Abbey in Kilnacrott near Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan.

They were presided over by three canon lawyers and examined formal complaints that Smyth had sexually abused a teenage girl and, separately, an altar boy during church-related activities. Smyth was accused of sexually assaulting the boy, then aged 10, while on holiday in west Cork. The girl said the priest first abused her around Easter 1970, when she was 14.

Both the boy and the girl were required to sign affidavits swearing that they would not talk to anybody except priests given special permission by the tribunal hearings, known in church parlance as "ecclesiastical proceedings".

Church authorities did not inform gardai about the allegations. It was not until 1997 that Smyth was jailed in the republic for molesting 20 children.

This weekend, a spokesman for Brady said the then priest "as instructed and as a matter of urgency passed both reports to Bishop McKiernan for his immediate action".

He added: "The complainants signed undertakings on oath to respect the confidentiality of the information-gathering process."

Asked if the two children whose abuse was examined had been paid compensation by the church, the cardinal's spokesman said: "Out of respect for the right to confidentiality of the complainants, it would be inappropriate to comment on the compensation issue."

When asked if Brady intended to contest the case, the spokesman said: "The cardinal will maintain his right to defend himself, both in his personal capacity and as Primate of All-Ireland, while seeking a just resolution for all involved."

The revelation that the country's most senior churchman is accused of helping to keep child sex abuse complaints a secret comes as the Catholic church struggles with sex scandals in Germany, the Netherlands and the Vatican. Pope Benedict has been caught in a scandal over moving deviant priests from parish to parish in his native Germany.

Judge Yvonne Murphy's report, published last November, about the handling of complaints in the Dublin archdiocese, highlighted the church's crimen sollicitationis rules for investigating complaints. It dictates that the accuser takes an oath of secrecy.

"The penalty for breach of that oath could extend to excommunication," the report points out.

When the report was published, Cardinal Brady declared: "Every Catholic should comply fully with their obligations to the civil law and co-operate with the gardai in the reporting and investigation of any crime."

Prayer vigils for victims of clerical child abuse in Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands are being held in 30 American cities this weekend. Last week, a CNN crew was in Ireland to record a show about clerical child abuse to be broadcast on St Patrick's Day.

Belfast-born Smyth sexually abused children in Ireland and abroad for more than 40 years. He ministered in Scotland, Wales, Rhode Island and North Dakota as well as the north and south of Ireland. He died of a heart attack in prison in August 1997 while serving 12 years for 74 assaults on children aged from six to 15. Revelations that Smyth's file was held up in the attorney general's office contributed to the fall of the Fianna Fail-Labour government in 1994.