IRELAND
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 May 2012
The leader of the Catholic church in Ireland was under renewed pressure to step down after a television programme alleged that he failed to hand over a list of children being abused by the country’s most notorious paedophile priest to the victims’ parents or the police.
Cardinal Seán Brady faces fresh allegations that he failed to act after one of the victims gave him a list in 1975 of other children being abused by Father Brendan Smyth, who was convicted in 1994 of dozens of offences over a 40-year period.
While the Vatican appeared to be rallying around Brady, organisations representing the victims of clerical sex abuse in Ireland said these new allegations made his position untenable.
The Irish justice minister, Alan Shatter, described the testimony of an abuse victim who claimed to have handed over a list of names and addresses of victims to Brady as “tragic and disturbing”.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.