IRELAND
The Irish Times
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
BRENDAN SMYTH: NOT ALL Irish priests in the 1960s and 1970s were as enthralled by silence as Fr Seán Brady, it would appear. He had been “part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church . . . ” he said on Wednesday.
Not so Fr Bruno Mulvihill.
From the late 1960s he tried to have child abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth addressed through direct contact with two papal nuncios, one bishop, an abbot-general and two abbots. He might as well have stayed as silent as Fr Brady.
Fr Mulvihill joined the Norbertine congregation, of which Fr Brendan Smyth was a member, in 1963. From 1968 onwards he tried to have something done about his colleague. Some of this was recalled on the UTV Counterpoint programme Suffer Little Children, broadcast in October 1994.
There he produced a letter he sent to the bishop of Kilmore, Francis McKiernan, dated November 1st, 1974. In it he disclosed how “ever since 1964 I have known that a member of the community, Fr Brendan Smyth, is misbehaving: he is molesting children who attend bingo sessions. Two of them who are superficially known to me have told me about their troubles.” He “brought this matter to the attention of the abbot but to no avail”.
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