Cardinal should have gone ‘earlier’

Dundalk Democrat
August 19, 2014

http://www.dundalkdemocrat.ie/news/local-news/cardinal-should-have-gone-earlier-1-6246383

Cardinal Sean Brady with Fr Padraig Murphy PP Lordship and Ballymascanlon at his Silver Jubilee in Ravensdale Church on wednesday evening

Dundalk man Brendan Boland, who has just published a book on his experience of abuse by the serial paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, has said he is disappointed with the Cardinal’s letter of resignation to the Pope.

“It’s a long time coming,” he said. “He should have done it back in 2010. Maybe he should not have taken the job at all in 1994 when he found out Smyth was arrested in Northern Ireland”.

The cardinal, who was 75 on Saturday, has submitted his resignation to the Vatican.

This is required of all Catholic bishops when they reach that age.

He will remain a cardinal for life and may continue to vote in papal elections until 2019, when he will be 80.

Interviewed on RTÉ Radio One’s This Week programme on Sunday, Mr Boland said he and Smyth’s other victims were “really disappointed. Cardinal Brady is resigning. It appears to us that he’s just retiring naturally as if he’s done nothing wrong. I feel let down again. They’re attempting to save face again”.

“They’ve failed to acknowledge the mishandling of the information that I gave them back in 1975, names and addresses of other children that I knew were being abused.”