Ireland Online
March 16, 2010
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/top-clerics-advised-psychiatric-treatment-for-smyth-450252.html
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The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, is today facing continuing calls to resign after it emerged he gathered evidence in an internal church probe into serial sex offender Father Brendan Smyth.
It emerged today that senior Catholic clerics who failed to alert police to child sex attacks in the 1970s instead advised a notorious paedophile be given psychiatric treatment.
Campaigners have claimed the failure to notify police at the time saw Smyth engage in a subsequent 18-year reign of terror against children before he was finally arrested.
Cardinal Brady has defended his role in the 1975 meeting where two children abused by Smyth were asked to take a vow of silence as part of an internal investigation by clergy. News of the episode only emerged at the weekend as a result of court proceedings.
A statement issued by the church today repeated claims the current cardinal was a junior figure at the time, but it also revealed that clergy privy to Smyth’s crimes advised psychiatric treatment.
The One In Four victims’ group executive director Maeve Lewis said: “No-one is disputing that Cardinal Brady was not the most senior person in the investigation into Brendan Smyth.
“But on the other hand, he was a man in his 30s, he must have known what happened was wrong and was a crime.
“In the years after that, he must have known that Brendan Smyth was at large.
“Does he feel any remorse for the hundreds of children that I believe were abused by Brendan Smyth?”
Victims of abuse who were raped by Smyth have said they could have been spared their trauma if he had been apprehended in 1975.
Dr Brady has dismissed calls for his resignation since news of the 1975 case emerged at the weekend and has said he will only step down if told to by the Pope.
But with the Vatican forced this week to deny the Pope was responsible for rehousing a paedophile priest in his native Germany in 1980, Ms Lewis said the papacy had lost its moral authority on the issue.
While the Labour Party has called for a police probe into the 1975 case, One In Four said the State must step in to order inquiries into every Catholic diocese in Ireland.
The cardinal has said that, while he would act differently today, he had obeyed church law at the time by informing a bishop who then stopped Smyth conducting the full duties of a priest, though Smyth continued to have access to children and to attack them.
The Cardinal – then a part-time secretary to the then Bishop of Kilmore, the late Bishop Francis McKiernan – took notes during two meetings with children aged 14 and 15 who he believed had been abused by Smyth.
Smyth was at the centre of one of the first paedophile priest scandals to rock the Catholic Church in Ireland.
A seven-month delay in extraditing him to the North also collapsed the Government in November 1994 when the Labour Party withdrew from its coalition with Fianna Fail over claims that a warrant was withheld.
The repeat offender later admitted a litany of sex attacks on about 90 children in the island of Ireland over a 40-year period and was jailed. He died in prison in 1997.
In the statement issued today, the church said it wished to clarify events.
The Catholic Communications Office said: “The State’s first Child Abuse Guidelines came into effect in 1987 and the Church’s first guidelines, 'Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response', were published in 1996.
“In late March 1975, Father Sean Brady was asked by his bishop, Bishop Francis McKiernan, to conduct a canonical inquiry into an allegation of child sexual abuse which was made by a boy in Dundalk, concerning a Norbertine priest, Father Brendan Smyth.
“Father Brady was then a full-time teacher at St Patrick’s College, Cavan. Because he held a doctorate in Canon Law, Father Brady was asked to conduct this canonical inquiry; however he had no decision-making powers regarding the outcome of the inquiry. Bishop McKiernan held this responsibility.
“On March 29, 1975, Father Brady and two other priests interviewed a boy (14) in Dundalk. Father Brady’s role was to take notes. On April 4, 1975, Father Brady interviewed a second boy (15) in the Parochial House in Ballyjamesduff. On this occasion Father Brady conducted the inquiry by himself and took notes.
“At the end of both interviews, the boys were asked to confirm by oath the truthfulness of their statements and that they would preserve the confidentiality of the interview process.
“The intention of this oath was to avoid potential collusion in the gathering of the inquiry’s evidence and to ensure that the process was robust enough to withstand challenge by the perpetrator, Father Brendan Smyth.
“A week later Father Brady passed his findings to Bishop McKiernan for his immediate action.”
The statement added: “Eight days later, on April 12, 1975, Bishop McKiernan reported the findings to Father Smyth’s Religious Superior, the Abbot of Kilnacrott. The specific responsibility for the supervision of Father Smyth’s activities was, at all times, with his Religious Superiors. Bishop McKiernan withdrew Brendan Smyth’s priestly faculties and advised psychiatric intervention.”
The Labour Party has called for gardai to investigate Cardinal Brady’s secret talks with the child victims to determine if failure to notify authorities constituted a crime.
Roisin Shorthall, Spokeswoman on Social and Family Affairs, said detectives should be tasked to probe Father Brendan Smyth’s role in a 1975 canon law inquiry into the abuse.
“The Cardinal is hopelessly compromised by what has emerged over the weekend,” the Labour TD said.
A former Professor of Canon Law Monsignor Maurice Dooley said the Cardinal was under no obligation to report the allegations to gardai.
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