By Dan Collins and Caroline O’Doherty
Irish Examiner
March 17, 2010
http://www.irishexaminer.com/home/martin-breaks-silence-in-abuse-scandal-114729.html
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PAEDOPHILE priest Brendan Smyth should have been stopped from the very first time it was known he was abusing children, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said last night.
However, Dr Martin refused to be drawn on growing demands for the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Irish Catholic Church, who knew that Smyth had raped children but never reported the matter to the gardai.
Archbishop Martin said it was not his job to tell people to resign or to stay on.
The second most senior member of the Irish hierarchy said resigning was a personal decision. The most important issue was that "the entire truth comes out".
An inquiry into every diocese may be the only way forward, Dr Martin suggested. "Something like this may be necessary if we cannot get a way of ensuring that the truth is out and that people know the truth is out."
Martin McGuinness, the North’s deputy first minister, has joined growing calls for Cardinal Brady to step down over the scandal.
"I think Cardinal Brady should be considering this position and I would be very surprised if he wasn’t doing so at this time," he said in Washington.
Also in Washington was Taoiseach Brian Cowen who said the state should not get involved in Church matters nor the Church in state matters.
"I want to make it clearly the case that this is an important issue and that there are arrangements in place for child protection now that have to be maintained, promoted and defended.
"As Taoiseach of the country I am making it clear that this is what’s important – that there will be equality before the law," he said, denying any cabinet inconsistency between himself and the Greens.
Earlier, Environment Minister John Gormley said he would "have no difficulty" with a police investigation into revelations that two child victims were sworn to secrecy by the clergy in a 1975 probe.
"I suppose in many ways it is a case of evil triumphing while a good man stood back from the situation and I suppose it is a matter for the church authorities themselves and Cardinal Brady and his own conscience and he will have to deal with that," said Mr Gormley.
A statement by the Catholic Communications Office yesterday repeated claims the cardinal was a junior figure at the time, but it also revealed that the clergy advised psychiatric treatment for Smyth.
The "specific responsibility" for the supervision of Smyth’s activities was, at all times, with his religious Norbertine superiors in the Abbey of Kilnacrott, Co Cavan, the statement added.
The One In Four victims’ group executive director Maeve Lewis said that at the time Cardinal Brady was a man in his 30s and "must have known what happened was wrong and was a crime".
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