Fr Smyth’s toxic legacy - Church has destroy edits credibility
No matter how loudly he declares his determination to make Catholicism, especially the hierarchy, accept that our Constitution is the authority we submit to; no matter how loudly he says his church will not tolerate the abominations of the past, he will be remembered as the 35-year-old professor of canon law, who in 1975, actively obstructed the criminal justice system by being part of a process that silenced two victims of Fr Brendan Smyth. These revelations are shocking and very disappointing on so many, many fronts.
It yet again points to an intervention designed to protect the church but not hinder Fr Smyth, much less report him, as should have been done, to the gardaí. It raises the question about how many more raped and buggered children were silenced by “oaths”. Though how an oath – a sacred commitment to truth – drawn from two abused children could be used to bury such an abomination beggars belief. In reality it was corruption heaped upon corruption.
