IRELAND
Scotsman
Published on Thursday 3 May 2012
The leader of Ireland’s four million Catholics has said he will not resign after a documentary accused him of helping to cover up 1970s child abuse by a priest who went on to assault scores of other children.
Cardinal Sean Brady said the BBC documentary, broadcast in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, exaggerated his role in his 1975 interviews of two teenage boys abused by priest Brendan Smyth.
The clergyman yesterday said he gave his report as instructed to his bishop, who should have told Smyth’s religious order leaders. They, not he, had the power to act and failed to do so, he said.
“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. 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 said.
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