John Cooney: Cardinal must answer series of key questions
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FR Brian D'Arcy yesterday voiced the question ordinary God-fearing Catholics want a satisfactory answer to about Cardinal Sean Brady's central role in the Brendan Smyth paedophile cover-up.
How does the cardinal possibly think he can carry on improving child-protection guidelines when he let down two child victims of the serial pervert monk by cajoling them to sign oaths of secrecy about their ordeals?
There are also a number of other questions that need to be addressed by Cardinal Brady:
Why is he hiding behind the flimsy cloak of moral relativism by arguing that he be judged by today's standards of child protection rather than the non-existent safeguards of 1975?
Just as murder is murder any time of day, why does he consider that a rape of a child in 1975 is any less of a heinous crime than it is today?
Would His Eminence explain to reform Catholics such as Sean O'Conaill of the Voice of the Faithful in Ireland why he believes he can now provide the leadership that is needed to draw a line under all that happened in the era of a "church culture of silence", which his stonewalling on the Smyth scandal continues to perpetuate?
Does the cardinal not accept that the reason there were no child-protection guidelines in the church until survivors instigated criminal proceedings in 1994 was because no Catholic churchman -- himself included -- challenged the culture of silence in preceding decades?
Has it not dawned on the cardinal that, good man that he is, he himself is compromised by that culture of cover-up?
How can he convincingly explain to victim Marie Collins how he will be capable of capturing the enthusiasm of all Catholics -- survivors especially -- for the programme of recovery that is now so desperately needed in the Irish church when he has lost his moral authority?
Will Cardinal Brady verify or deny a claim made on Shannonside-Northside radio that he approved the burial of Smyth, arguably the most villainous of all the child-abusing priests worldwide, in Killnacrott's Holy Trinity Abbey in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan, after his sudden death in the Curragh prison in 1997?
Having come to the conclusion the children told the truth about Smyth's evil deeds, why did he not recommend to Bishop Francis McKiernan that the Diocese of Kilmore summon a canonical trial to chuck Smyth out of the priesthood?
WILL Cardinal Brady confirm that the presence at the Dundalk meeting with the two children of a representative of the metropolitan archdiocese of Armagh -- Bishop Francis Leddy -- was a pointer to the involvement of the then-Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal William Conway?
If so, is Cardinal Brady still trying to conceal that the cover-up of Smyth in 1975 was sanctioned by the then-leader of the Irish church?
Will the cardinal please stop engaging in 'mental reservations' at news-managed events, open the archives to let us see the full documentation and hold a news conference at which he can be intensively questioned on an episode that has added to the shame of the Irish church and to himself?
- John Cooney
Irish Independent
