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	Priest Says Clergy Are '100% Behind' Cardinal Brady on Resisting Calls to Resign Fermanagh Herald March 16, 2010 http://www.nwipp-newspapers.com/fh/free/296820008336665.php IRELAND -- AS pressure mounts this week on Cardinal Sean Brady to resign for not informing Gardai about Fr Brendan Smyth's abuse of two teenage girls in the m id-70's, clergy in the Kilmore diocese where the offences took place remain steadfast he should stay on. The diocese covers mainly County Cavan, but it also takes an area of south Fermanagh including Teemore, Derrylin, Kinawley and Killesher. One parish priest, who knew Brendan Smyth and the names of his two young victims - he described Smyth as 'an oddball' - said the clergy of Kilmore would be 100 per cent behind the cardinal, himself a native of Cavan. And, in the course of a candid interview to the Herald, he spoke about Smyth, and gave his reasons why the cardinal should not stand down. "At the time I was in a parish not that far from Kilnacrot Abbey where Smyth was based. It was an enclosed abbey but Smyth would go around putting up posters for bazaars and bingo which is how they made their money. "He would give retreats and hear confessions in places like the Loreto College, an all-girls' boarding school in Cavan. He knew the families of two of the girls and he would bring them sweets and bring them into the refectory (dining hall) and abused them there. "A few years back, one of the girls he assaulted - she was well into her 20's at that stage - described what Smyth did to her, and it wasn't very edifying. She would have been a young girl of 14 or 15 back then." The priest explained that Smyth, a Norbertine (called after St Norbert), belonged to an order which was independent of the bishop and, for that reason the monks rarely met or mixed with the diocesan clergy. Except in his own case. "I had to look after my parish and didn't get to our own retreat so, in 72/73, I used to do the three-day retreats in Kilnacrot Abbey. I would see Brendan Smyth in the chapel. He would pass you by in the corridor and never speak. I was never talking to him. "Mad? You know I always thought that. He had wild eyes in his head. He was a complete oddball. At that stage I had always a suspicion about him. And, when I later heard the revelations about him I thought to myself: that explains that." CARDINAL The priest explained that rumours about Smyth got to the ears of the then Bishop of Kilmore, the late Francis McKiernan who then instructed Fr Sean Brady, then the diocesan secretary, to check them out. "He was a trained canonist. He had two meetings with the two girls that Smyth abused. He was only getting information for the bishop. Smyth would have been hearing confessions in the Loreto College which is one mile from the bishop in Cavan Town. The bishop would have heard the rumours and wanted information on this dangerous paedophile priest so he could block Smyth from hearing confessions in Loreto. "The Cardinal then passed on the information to the bishop and, on the basis of that information, Bishop McKiernan withdrew the faculty from Brendan Smyth to hear confessions in Loreto College where he had assaulted the two girls." Our priest, asked if Fr Brady should not have notified the Gardai, said the cardinal would have had no function to do that. "At that stage, in 1975, there was no protocol about reporting to the civil authorities. That only came in 10 years ago. Sean Brady was only a minor official, a priest in St Patrick's College, Cavan who was acting as diocesan secretary. "Bishop McKiernan would have had a conscience. I am sure the way he would have done it was to bring it to the attention of the Abbot of Kilnacrot. "These orders are independent of a bishop and I would be sure that in withdrawing the faculty from him to hear confessions in a girls' school in the diocese, that he would have to explain it to the abbot. "The Kilnacrot authorities don't seem to have acted on it. Sean Brady is completely innocent. He wasn't trying to cover up. He was doing a job. The clergy of the diocese would be behind him 100 per cent. They would know the truth and I am telling you the exact truth that Fr Brady was only acting as an innocent intermediary in gathering information from these girls about a dangerous priest."
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