Victim Calls on Brady to Resign

By Charlie Taylor
Irish Times
May 3, 2012

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0503/breaking16.html

Paedophile priest Brendan Smyth leaving Limavady Courthouse, Co Derry, after extradition proceedings to the Republic in 1997. One of Smyth's victims today called on Cardinal Brady to step down.

A man abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth in the years after he had been investigated by an inquiry team that include Cardinal Sean Brady has called on the Catholic primate to resign.

Sam Adair, a former resident of the Nazareth Lodge children's home in Belfast, also called on the current primate to offer compensation to Smyth's victims.

Pressure is growing on Cardinal Brady to step down following renewed allegations about his role in a church inquiry team investigating the Norbertine priest in 1975.

A BBC documentary broadcast on Tuesday evening revealed how, in 1975, when he was a priest in the diocese of Kilmore, Dr Brady was given the names and addresses of children who were abused by the serial child sex abuser Smyth.

Dr Brady yesterday said allegations made against him in the documentary, were "seriously misleading and untrue" and claimed the programme makers set out to "deliberately exaggerate and misrepresent" his role in events.

However, in an interview on RTE radio this morning Mr Adair said there were inconsistencies in Dr Brady's version of events. He also criticised the current primate for his refusal to follow up on the allegations made and for not showing remorse.

"The fact of the matter is that these children were abused and he knew about it," said Mr Adair.

"He knew of five children's names and addresses and to have a rabid paedophile of the Catholic Church visiting those homes and sexually molesting those children, the very, very, very least he could have done was went and made sure that he slept at night with his clear conscience that the parents of these children knew that this tea-drinking, Marie biscuit-eating paedophile was not lurking around their houses," he added.

Mr Adair criticised Dr Brady for downplaying his role in the inquiry into Smyth and for attempting to blame others for his lack of inaction in following up on allegations made by abuse victims.

"The facts of the matter are that this man was a leading, skilled Canon lawyer (who was) highly paid and sought after and promoted to the highest rank of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe. He was a skilled Canon lawyer, he was not a note-taker," he said of Dr Brady.

"This Titanic embarrassment, humiliation and injustice to Catholic children has never, ever, ever been dealt with by the Cardinal whatsoever. Maybe someone else could step into the breach here and take this situation and solve this situation," he added.

Mr Adair said that Dr Brady's argument that there were no guidelines on reporting clerical child abuse were invalid.

"The world has changed and times are different but the fact of the matter is that his own conscience was enough guidelines for himself to ensure...that these children were not abused," he said.

"He did not keep these children from this devil in a dog's collar," he added.

Mr Adair said that given Dr Brady's failure to act there was no other option but for him to resign.

"The most important point about this is that this isn't an ordinary man that's walking the street... this is a man that is supposed to be the telephone line to God and people are relying on their eternal salvation on him and this man hasn't even got the moral courage to report child rape and the abuse of children," he said.