IRELAND
Irish Times
Jacky Jones
The evidence of Cardinal Seán Brady, retired Archbishop of Armagh, to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down, cannot be taken seriously. Or else he still doesn’t get child abuse. He used the word “scandal” to describe the cover-up of Fr Brendan Smyth’s abuse. This use of language means that Cardinal Brady sees sexual abuse as a moral issue, not a crime.
His claim that the Catholic Church hierarchy did not understand paedophilia is irrelevant, and a distraction. No one needs to understand paedophilia to realise that sexual assaults on children are criminal acts. Child abuse is like domestic violence and adult rape. Such crimes are always about the abuse of power and using fear to get what you want. Child abusers do it because they can, not because they have irresistible urges.
Cardinal Brady also claimed that the hierarchy did not understand the effect of sexual abuse on children. What part of raping and buggering girls and boys did they not understand? What effect did they think these criminal acts would have on children? When adult women and men are raped, the consequences are catastrophic. How much worse must it be for children? With rape and buggery there would have been injuries. Yet Cardinal Brady asked the two boys who had been abused by Smyth whether they “liked” what was done to them. When gathering evidence during the canonical inquiry in 1975 he ought to have known that children were at risk of serious harm. Swearing witnesses to secrecy is akin to aiding and abetting these crimes and left hundreds more children at risk of rape. Let’s hope that those in the church who are now charged with safeguarding children have a better understanding of the law.
Laws dealing with sexual assaults on minors go back nearly two centuries. The Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 covered rape and sexual assaults of girls and boys. “Whosoever shall be guilty of the crime of rape . . . shall be liable to be kept in penal servitude for life” and “persons convicted of aggravated assaults on females and boys under 14 years of age may be imprisoned or fined”. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1935 also covered sexual abuse. “Any person who unlawfully and carnally knows any girl under the age of 15 shall be guilty of a felony and shall be liable on conviction thereof to penal servitude for life.” Buggery of boys was also covered and attracted a sentence of life imprisonment. These Acts were updated and strengthened by the Criminal Law (Rape) Amendment Act 1990. The new Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill will provide greater protection for children when it is finally enacted.
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