Why the Leader of Ireland's Catholics Must Quit

By Mark Dooley
Daily Mail
May 2, 2012

http://dooleyblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/05/why-the-leader-of-irelands-catholics-must-quit.html

With each passing day, the crisis in the Irish Catholic Church grows deeper. In a BBC This World documentary screened on BBC Northern Ireland last night, it was claimed that, in 1975, the Catholic Primate of Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, failed to inform parents that their children were being abused by the notorious paedophile priest, Brendan Smyth. Here is how one Irish newspaper reported the incident this morning:

‘In last night’s programme, Brendan Boland, who was abused by Smyth as a 12-year-old, claimed that information he gave to a Catholic Church inquiry team, which included Cardinal Brady, was not passed on to parents of the victims of the paedophile priest. Mr Boland from County Louth recounted how two of these victims, a boy from Belfast and a boy from Cavan, continued to be abused by the priest after the inquiry group, which comprised three priests, completed its work. The programme expands on information disclosed in 2010 about how the information compiled by the canonical inquiry in 1975, to which Mr Boland gave evidence, was not passed on to gardai [police]. That disclosure led to calls for Cardinal Brady to resign’.

In response, a spokesman for the Cardinal said that ‘even according to today’s State and Church guidelines, Fr Brady [as he then was] would not be the person with responsibility for making a report to the civil authorities. That responsibility at the time rested with the only people who had the authority to stop Brendan Smyth, namely the Abbot of his Monastery’.

It is certainly true that Fr Brady, who was merely a notary or note taker for the inquiry team, did not have responsibility for handing information to the police. He was obliged to deliver his notes to both his religious superior and his bishop, under whose authority the priest was acting. If anything, blame should be directed at Fr Brady’s Episcopal superiors for permitting Brendan Smyth to continue in active ministry long after his evil actions had come to light.

Still, this sorry saga will do little to re-establish confidence in the Irish Church. Already, there have been renewed calls for the Cardinal to resign. This afternoon, he has refused to do so, but, for the sake of the Church, I think he should reconsider.

As I have said here before, the failure of the Irish bishops to exercise appropriate Episcopal authority has profoundly traumatised Irish Catholicism. This is true, not only in relation to the horrors of clerical child sex abuse, but also on account of their abject failure to police their seminaries, guide their priests and teach their flock. And so, we have seminaries barely fit for purpose, renegade priests openly defying their superiors and one of the most poorly catechised congregations in the Catholic world.

Meanwhile, not a single Irish bishop has spoken out against the antics of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) – that band of renegades who continue to openly defy the authority of the Pope. Therefore, either the bishops tacitly support the actions of the ACP, or they don’t want to be perceived as supporting the recent ‘silencing’ of some ACP members by the Vatican. Either way, it is appalling that men ordained to carry the mantle of the first apostles, should be so ineffectual in the face of such blatant dissent.

Of course, last night’s revelations surrounding Cardinal Brady will only further embolden the ACP. We can expect them to issue more demands for women and married priests, as if that would have prevented paedophiles from using the priesthood for their own evil ends. In the absence of strong bishops, prepared to carefully vet candidates for the priesthood and to closely monitor their seminaries, the Church was defenceless against what Pope Paul VI aptly described as ‘the smoke of Satan’.

If now is the time for Cardinal Brady to go, it is because the Irish Church can no longer afford ineffective leadership. It desperately needs someone whose voice will transcend the hollow din of the ACP, and defend the Church against both her internal and external critics. It needs a man like Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York - someone who is not only a great priest, but also a man of immense good humour, a widely read columnist, blogger and exquisite communicator. He was, moreover, recently ranked ahead of Lady Gaga, Barack Obama and George Clooney in a public vote to decide Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year 2012'.

If the Irish Church were led by such a man, everything would dramatically change. As it stands, however, the Irish Hierarchy reminds me of the old Soviet Politburo, which Roger Scruton once characterised as the ‘House of the Dead’. As he wrote in a column for The Times in 1983: ‘It is true that, on state occasions, a few old men shuffle on to the balcony of the Kremlin and raise their hands in zombie-like salutation... But can we be sure that these bodies are really alive, that the voice of their dry stiff faces is still the voice of a feeling creature, with responses of its own?’

Let there be no mistake, so long as such people preside over the Irish Church it will never recover. It is high time they bowed to the inevitable by handing their crosiers to those great unsung priests who, because they have something powerful to preach, were systematically sidelined by their bishops. Only in their safe hands does Irish Catholicism have a future worthy of those who sacrificed in its name.