Victims Speak, by Dan Buckley and Dan Collins, Irish Examiner, March 16, 2010

Victims Speak

By Dan Buckley and Dan Collins
Irish Examiner
March 16, 2010

http://www.examiner.ie/home/victims-speak-114618.html

IRELAND -- CHILD rape victims have said they could have been saved from a paedophile priest if the head of the Catholic Church had taken action when he learned of the attacks 35 years ago.

Cardinal Seán Brady has again dismissed calls for his resignation and defended his role in a 1975 meeting where two children abused by sex offender Fr Brendan Smyth were asked to take a vow of silence. Following the meeting clergy failed to contact the Garda.

The cardinal said: "I played my part, the part I had 35 years ago, as a priest recording secretary to the best of my ability. We are now judging the behaviour of 35 years ago by the standards we set today and I don't think that is fair and it's not applied to other sectors of society."

The cardinal said he would only step down if the Pope told him to go, but pressure mounted yesterday as victims abused by Smyth during his subsequent 18-year reign of terror said the cardinal had lost moral authority.

Abuse victim Marie Collins has called for the remit of the Murphy Commission to be extended to every diocese in the country. She said Cardinal Brady has lost his credibility.

The Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) said the cardinal's position was now untenable.

"Cardinal Brady is personally implicated in collusion with clerical child sexual abuse," the network's director Fiona Neary said. "In recent public statements regarding clerical child abuse, he did not make public his role in pressuring and bullying victims to remain silent.

"He did not make public his own failures to disclose a known abuser to civil authorities."

Ms Neary called on Dr Brady to resign immediately.

"Sexual abuse that could have been prevented was not, and Brendan Smyth continued to abuse children," she added.