Irish cardinal in child abuse scandal

This video, about clerical sexual child abuse in Ireland, is called Oath of Secrecy.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Abuse cover-up cardinal told to resign

Wednesday 02 May 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Ireland’s top Catholic cleric faced fresh calls to resign today after a BBC documentary accused him of helping to cover up child abuse committed by a notorious paedophile priest in the 1970s.

Cardinal Sean Brady has already admitted he took notes of two children’s testimony of abuse in 1975 and gave the report to his bishop, not the police.

The revelations became public after those victims sued Cardinal Brady and the church for damages and won confidential settlements.

One victim, Brendan Boland, told the BBC he also alerted Cardinal Brady to several other children being abused by the same priest, but he didn’t tell their parents of the danger.

The priest, Brendan Smyth, spent two more decades abusing children in Ireland and the United States before being imprisoned.

Mr Boland said his own father had not been allowed in the room when Cardinal Brady questioned him about Mr Smyth’s sexual assaults.

Cardinal Brady had the 14-year-old boy sign an oath of secrecy – a measure that the church insists was designed to protect the boy, not the church.

Prominent Irish child abuse support group One in Four said Cardinal Brady previously declared he would resign if his actions had resulted in unnecessary abuse of even a single child and should follow through on that promise now.

“The documentary suggests that many children could have been protected from the sexual predator if Cardinal Brady had not been so invested in protecting the church,” One in Four said.

Related articles

• Brother and sister file suit against Cardinal Sean Brady over Brendan Smyth abuse case (irishcentral.com)
• Siblings suing Brady must prove issue on previous case (irishtimes.com)
• Is This Cardinal Brady’s Last Stand? (insightscoop.typepad.com)
• Priest lashes out at cardinal over ‘malicious complaints’ (mumbailaity.wordpress.com)
• Seal of confession imperiled after Irish sex-abuse report (insightscoop.typepad.com)
• Silenced priest Fr Iggy O’Donovan gets freedom of town honor in Drogheda (irishcentral.com)
• In other ITCCS Ireland News: Black Ops and New Protests (itccs.org)