By David Sharrock
The Times
March 16, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7063601.ece
IRELAND -- The leader of Ireland's Roman Catholics is under increasing pressure after another influential organisation criticised his refusal to resign over the paedophile priests scandal.
Cardinal Seán Brady, the All-Ireland Primate, admitted on Sunday that he was involved in two meetings in 1975 with children abused by a notorious paedophile priest at which the boy and girl were compelled to sign oaths of secrecy.
The Church authorities failed to inform the police of the children's allegations and their abuser, Father Brendan Smyth, went on raping children for another 20 years.
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| Cardinal Brady has said it was not his responsibility to pass on abuse allegations to the police Photo by Paul McErlane |
Voice of the Faithful, a lay organisation of Catholics, said in a statement that its members could not understand why the cardinal believed he should not resign after he said in December last year that he would do so if he thought any failure to act on his part had caused a child to suffer.
The cardinal said yesterday that he had meant that he would resign if he had failed as a bishop.
He said that in 1975 he was only a priest tasked by a bishop to interview the children and take notes. He was therefore not the "designated person" in authority capable of taking decisions to go to the police.
Voice of the Faithful said that the cardinal's failure to challenge the culture of the Church's silence surrounding clerical child sexual abuse was a "most serious matter" which had left the Church without a leader in whom its members, especially the survivors of abuse, could have full confidence.
The Rape Crisis Centre said today that it had to bring in extra staff overnight to cope with a significant increase in calls to its helpline following the latest revelations about how the Catholic Church dealt with Smyth.
Smyth is believed to have sexually abused children across Ireland, the UK and the United States over decades, even though his superiors were aware of the danger he posed as early as the 1960s.
He died in prison in 1997 of a heart attack. He brought down an Irish government in 1994 over allegations that the authorities had failed to act properly on an extradition warrant issued by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
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