Irish Cardinal Rejects New Accusations on Pedophile Priest

By Douglas Dalby
New York Times
May 2, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/europe/irish-cardinal-rejects-new-accusations-on-pedophile-priest.html?_r=1

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said on Wednesday that he would not resign despite new accusations that he failed 35 years ago to alert the parents of victims of a serial pedophile priest, allowing the abuse to continue for at least another decade.

The cardinal’s statement blamed other members of the church hierarchy as failing to act to halt the priest, Brendan Smyth.

“With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them,” Cardinal Brady said in his statement. “However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past.”

Cardinal Brady resisted calls to step down two years ago over his role in a 1975 church investigation, saying his role had been confined to taking notes in interviews with a child who said he and others were being sexually abused by Father Smyth.

The cardinal, who was a teacher, canon lawyer and bishop’s secretary at the time, maintains that his notes had been passed on to his superiors and it had been up to them to deal with the matter, given that in 1975, he had no major role in the church and no authority over Father Smyth. However, a BBC current affairs program broadcast on Tuesday in Northern Ireland showed church documents from the time in which the cardinal described himself as having been “dispatched to investigate the complaint” — not acting as a stenographer — and showcasing details of the accusations along with accounts of those who said the revelations had not halted the abuse.

On the program, “The Shame of the Catholic Church,” Brendan Boland, who was 14 when he raised the alarm against Father Smyth and instigated the 1975 investigation, said he had at the time supplied the names and addresses of five other children that he believed were either being abused by the priest or were in danger of being abused by him. A case by Mr. Boland against the Archdiocese of Armagh and Cardinal Brady was settled in November 2011 for an undisclosed sum.

Now 51, he says he was sworn to silence after his interview with Cardinal Brady and two other priests at a meeting in Belfast. The BBC program reported that the parents of the children he named said they were not warned by anyone in the church about the danger Father Smyth posed.

One of those named said Father Smyth’s abuse continued. The priest is also accused of assaulting that child’s sister and then four younger cousins over the ensuing 13 years.

The individual concerned, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the program: “Nobody came to our house. They should have come to our house and warned our family or my parents and said, ‘Look this is what’s happening; this man is involved in this. We would strictly advise you to keep him away from the house.

“Brendan, poor Brendan actually thought giving this information, he thought he was going to protect me and protect other people and thinking this was going to be the end of it.

“And by God it is far from the end.”

Cardinal Brady, who has led the Irish church since 1996, said the documentary had overstated and misrepresented his role.

“The commentary in the program and much of the coverage of my role in this inquiry gives the impression that I was the only person who knew of the allegations against Brendan Smyth at that time and that because of the office I hold in the church today I somehow had the power to stop Brendan Smyth in 1975,” he said. “I had absolutely no authority over Brendan Smyth.”

Father Smyth’s eventual trials caused a furor when it emerged that the church had moved him from parish to parish across the island for 40 years as he left a trail of accusations in his wake. He was first jailed in a sexual abuse case in 1994 in Northern Ireland. On his release in 1997 he was extradited to the Irish Republic, where he was sentenced to a further 12 years after pleading guilt to 74 charges of indecent and sexual assault. He died at 70, having served less than a year of that sentence.

Maeve Lewis, executive director of an Irish group working on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, One in Four, called on the cardinal to explain his actions.

“This is going to be heartbreaking for all those who suffered abuse after those first disclosures were made, because they know their suffering could have been avoided if only action had been taken,” she said.

Following the program, the church was quick to defend the cardinal. In a statement it said that in 1975 “no State or church guidelines for responding to allegations of child abuse existed in Ireland.”

On Wednesday, a Vatican official, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, told Ireland’s national radio RTE that Cardinal Brady had “fulfilled his duties well.” He said the church in Ireland needed leaders who had “learned the hard way and are determined to protect children.” He qualified this afterward, saying: “They have learned because they have realized that you have to act immediately.”