Monday, March 15, 2010
AS pressure for his resignation grows, Cardinal Seán Brady has serious questions to answer.
Having observed last year that senior clerics must accept responsibility for their actions, the latest revelations about his role in secret diocesan investigation into the activities of paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth has put the cardinal in a situation somewhat of his own making.
The crux of this issue is his admission that when he was part-time secretary to the Bishop of Kilmore in 1975, he was present at meetings where two teenage victims swore not to reveal that the Church was investigating complaints about the monstrous priest.
While the cardinal rejects claims of a cover up, effectively by muzzling the teenagers with an oath of silence, the Church stands accused of concealing the activities of the notorious Norbertine priest who later featured at the centre of a political crisis that led to the collapse of the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition in 1994. Last year, during the latest clerical abuse crisis to engulf the church, Cardinal Brady said that he would resign if he found himself in a situation where he was aware that failure to act on information that children were being abused meant other children were abused.
In such matters, perceptions are everything. Despite rejecting calls for his resignation, the cardinal should now consider his position.
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.