SURVIVORS WILL BE HEARTBROKEN FOLLOWING NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT CARDINAL BRADY SAYS ONE IN FOUR
One in Four says today that new revelations about Cardinal Brady’s role in the Brendan Smith affair require an explanation from the Cardinal. A BBC documentary revealed that the Cardinal had information about other children who were being abused at the time, but failed to act.
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. Executive Director Maeve Lewis says “It will be heartbreaking for survivors to realise that their suffering could have been avoided if only action had been taken”
Maeve Lewis continues: “While on paper the Church now has good child protection practices, this documentary casts a shadow on the credibility of Cardinal Brady as a leader of the new policy. Although the times were very different then, it is unimaginable that any adult had such knowledge and failed to act”
Maeve Lewis ends “This devastating situation highlights how important it is that legislation is in place to keep children safe. The new Children First Bill and the Withholding Information Bill will, when enacted, prevent such catastrophic failures to keep children safe.”
Comments (11)
I want to show my support to all those children that were sexually abused by the catholic clergy for such a long time. Even without legislation at the time, a person with such authority as Fr Sean Brady and others in the Catholic Church should have acted out of humanity to stop this horrendous sexual abuse. Even if it wasn’t what they used to do in those days: to step forward in dark Catholic Ireland, how do these priests, cardinals etc still justify their positions in the Church today? So many lives have been destroyed, so many souls have been tormented and tortured.Should they not step down to show the victims some respect?
Esmeralda at 16:56 on 02 May 2012
i am very saddened to see that once again the victims of
clerical child sexual abuse have been so terribly let down
by the inaction of cardinal brady and can only hope and
pray that he will do what the abuse victims ask of him
to bring some consolation and relief in their suffering.r
fr anthony mc sweeney at 18:03 on 03 May 2012
Not only should Cardinal Sean Brady resign, his superiors in Rome should have fired him long ago, if the Vatican wants to demonstrate that it is serious about showing it, now, finally, has zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious. Perhaps the Cardinal just wants to be around to officiate at the Eucharistic Congress? Too bad, his presence would serve only to remind everyone of the long decades of abuse in the church, and his role in not stopping even a small portion of it, when he could. His ““excuse” that he was just a simple note-taker is a device whereby he passes responsibility up the chain of command. He is reminiscent of lower-ranking Nazis who maintained they “were just following orders” to exculpate themselves in the murders of countless Jews during WW11. Pontius Pilate washed his hands as a sign that he was not responsible for the coming death of Jesus Christ. Yes, Cardinal Brady has notorious precedents for his stubborn refusal to tender his resignation. This does not obscure the fact that go he must. If there is a petition urging his resignation, I will gladly sign it.
Therese Rickman-Bull at 19:42 on 05 May 2012
As sad as the whole situation is, it is unreasonable to accuse Cardinal Brady of wrong doing or not doing enough. Even by today’s stringent child protection procedures he would have discharged his duty fully.
It is dangerous to scapegoat individuals unreasonably in this way ... there are plenty of blatantly guilty people on whom the accusations should rest. Lord of the Flies comes to mind ...
Tom at 12:40 on 07 May 2012
I think people who are indirectly or directly involved in any scandal or henious crime should take part of the collective responsibility for it. In today’s(8/5) Irish Times Cardinal Brady is quoted as saying that “if we were in the same situation now” , he would be “absolutely certain” to inform the parents of the victims. Too little too late.The comparison with Nazi prison guards obeying orders is very apt here. The crimes in Nazi Germany were possible because lower rank individuals did not speak up and did not act as individuals with a moral sense. All those small powerless individuals constituted the greater collective that allowed the psychopathic crimes of the Nazis’ to become the basis of common sense in the Third Reich. It was the submissive and cowardly reactions of Fr Brady’s and other clergy like him that allowed inhuman and sexually abusive treatment of young people to continue for decades in Ireland. This way of inaction seems to have permeated Irish society in those days. In order to get real change representatives of any decadent regime where crimes against humans is indirectly or directly allowed must go. Even Gorbachev who introduced Perestroijka that ended the totalitarian communist Soviet led regimes stepped down. Cardinal Brady should go for the survival of the Catholic Church, but maybe this reactionary Church is not meant to survive! I too would sign a petition for Cardinal Brady to step down for good. I am also glad that some people here have written their honest opinions. The reaction to Cardinal in the press and T.V is sometimes so careful it is muffled.
Esmeralda at 10:17 on 08 May 2012
To have your parents and then a priest rape you weather it is boy or girl, happens because other do not want to know, and often are told by the kids themselves and the person does nothing about if, I believe that sexual abuse is the norm in society and their are few that have not been abused in Ireland and American and all over the world.. We have been taught to give over our power so that we may be loved, even when the love comes as “RAPE”....
xo
Melissa
melissa lee at 16:37 on 08 May 2012
Yes, a petition needs to be drawn up. It can be done on line although I do not know how to do this.Just think,signatures from Ireland, Italy the U.S.A. I am a believer in the statement “there are more of us than “them” and anything is POSSIBLE!!!! Donna Izzi U.S.A. Action = FREEDOM Inaction = repression and depression..
Donna at 21:42 on 08 May 2012
Plenty of politicians and editors are ready to blame Cardinal Brady and I would rather say that I was appalled by how the inqury was conducted,We all know in the old days many a grown man was frightened of the priests and yet there was a boy of 14 questioned by several priests alone in a room whilst his father was outside and then sworn to secrecy.It reminds one of the Inquisition.A burden put on a victim.
gerry oates at 21:45 on 08 May 2012
“There are none so blind as those that will not see” Tom. If you prefer to take the side of Cardinal Brady that is your right in a democracy. Everyone else who has commented here believes it is incumbent upon us to show solidarity with the victims of the sexual abuse that festered and was prolonged because of the inaction of Brady and others.
To paraphrase Edmund Burke, “for evil to survive, it is enough that a good man do nothing.” Sean Brady was not “a good man” when interviewing children who came forward about Fr. Smith’s abuse, Father Brady was first and foremost a canon lawyer. It is generally accepted practice that in order to protect their rights under law, children may not be interviewed by a lawyer for the opposing side without their own legal guardian present. Father Brady flouted this concept, intimidated the children into silence, and thereafter maintained his own silence when it became apparent that his superiors intended to do nothing with the information he furnished to them.
Brady should not have comforted himself, nor should he be allowed to continue with his self-serving belief that once he passed on the information gleaned from those interviews, that there his responsibilities ended. Morally, they did and do not, particularly when it became apparent that his superiors intended to do nothing to stop Fr. Smith’s abilities to abuse more children. In a pattern repeated elsewhere, Smith was moved from parish to parish for decades, finding new children to abuse wherever he went.
Change.org is a vehicle through which a petition can be initiated. In my view, this should be addressed to Pope Benedict. He makes sorrowful speeches and promises change, let us give him an opportunity to prove that he means what he says about stopping the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious. Most of us are on FaceBook which has world-wide reach. I know that my friends would sign such a petition whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim, because sexual abuse committed against an Irish child that does not inspire global outrage, means that it can, and does happen in other countries, without the condemnation that should result wherever the child lives and whatever the religion he lives under.
Pope Benedict should be left in no doubt that if Cardinal Brady is left in place, there will be demonstrations and placards at the Eucharistic Congress. The Vatican cannot continue to stage these public relations spectacles while the church itself in Ireland, England, Belgium, Germany, Canada, the United States, Australia, Latin America, South Africa and other places has been soiled by cascading revelations of sexual abuse of children by priests and religious.
Further, Pope Benedict must be informed that it would not be acceptable for Brady to be removed to a sinecure in Rome, as was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston a few years ago. A group of priests in that Archdiocese wrote a public letter demanding Law’s resignation. The Vatican’s response was to appoint him Vicar of Saint Mary Major Basilica in Rome where he officiated at one of the special masses following the death of Pope John Paul 11.
I stand with Fr. Smith’s victims and all the victims in Ireland who have been twice abused, firstly by sadistic predators, and secondly by too many people, for too many years who did not want to know what was happening, so that they would not be forced to do something to stop this cancer that eats away at the childhood of innocents that have been betrayed by priests, church and society for far too long. Given all of the reports that have been published in Ireland nobody can now say “I did not know.” Let us end the impunity for aberrant priests and their enablers in the Irish hierarchy and their bosses in the Vatican NOW!
Therese Rickman-Bull at 23:05 on 09 May 2012
Hi again, two petitions have been created on change.org already. One is called : Cardinal Sean Brady’s resignation ” Cardinal Brady’s should resign immediately” , the second one: Catholic Church: Cardinal Brady must resign and face justice. I think either of them would be good to support! Please share and forward to your friends and relatives, work colleagues etc.
Esmeralda at 19:05 on 10 May 2012
With the 50th Eucharistic Congress soon to begin at the RDS in Dublin, a national ‘People’s Petition’ launched in Donegal calling for the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady Primate of All Ireland who is to preside over the Congress has garnered almost 500 signatures. Sign now and increase the pressure on the Cardinal to ‘do the right thing.’
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/246/859/640/petition-calling-for-the-resignation-of-cardinal-sean-brady/
Columbia at 09:26 on 31 May 2012