From Unity, 27 March 2010

Just do it!

by W. Owl

Day by day the revelations about the sexual abuse of children by clerics prove beyond any doubt the horror that existed within the Catholic Church, not only in Ireland but worldwide.
     Accusations of cover-ups have now reached the door of the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady, and naturally there have been calls for his resignation.
     In his case, the cover-up allegations centre round the abuses committed by Father Brendan Smyth thirty-five years ago and on one particular occasion when he interviewed a girl and a boy about the abuse they suffered. Brady and other colleagues got the youngsters to sign an oath of secrecy that in anybody’s eyes mounts to complicity.
     The fact that Smyth’s activities were not reported to the police only adds to the complicity claim, especially as Smyth went on to abuse more children until he was imprisoned in 1994.
     Evidence shows that Smyth had been abusing children for over forty years, not only in Ireland but also in other countries, including Scotland, England, and the United States.
     Brady's defence that it was not up to him to report Smyth is really no defence.
     Such is the outrage that Fionnuala O Connor, writing in the Irish News, 16 March, under the heading “Passive faithful may now have to revolt,” made the point that “a major and organised protest in the very near future by practising Catholics—a clear cut surge of anger at being taken for fools and dupes by their pastors—might bring a breath of satisfaction to abused people silenced often from childhood.”
     She started her article by writing “that churchmen love their institution more than their people is beyond argument,” and in the case of Cardinal Brady his response “has only proved that he put Church before children.”
     O Connor’s comments are staggering for the Catholic Church, and it would be difficult for anyone to contradict them. She refers to the girl who was sworn to secrecy but on growing up decided to sue the Church and the Cardinal, as prelate and as an individual, for failing to report Smyth to the Irish police. (They were the relevant force, as the oath-signing took place in Co. Cavan.) The cased has been “crawling” through the courts for thirteem years, which smacks of more complicity.
     Apparently the “undertaking” signed by the girl pledged her not to speak of the abuse—except to a priest appointed by the Church to deal with such matters. Nothing like keeping such matter in-house.
     O Connor quotes Brady’s opinions on the Smyth case, one of which was that “he was acting under orders.” Where have we heard that one before?
     As an aside: whose orders?
     He covers himself in glory by saying that he effectively stopped Smyth hearing confessions. Big deal, one might say. Then he tries to shift the blame by claiming that Smyth was the responsibility of his abbot. I bet the abbot, whoever he was, was pleased about that.
     In response to the question as to why he did not speak up, according to O Connor he said, “There was a culture of silence about this, a culture of secrecy.” Talk about being condemned out of your own mouth! O Connor then refers to the past when Brady had been “eloquent” about the Church’s duty to children, the crime of abuse, civic responsibility, exclaiming, “no-one is above the law in this country.” No-one except the Church, it seems.
     Last December he said that if he knew his failure to act “meant that other children were abused, I think I would resign.” Other children were abused; so why is he resisting calls for his resignation?
     In what can only be described as a U-turn, he says that “frankly” he did not think this a resigning matter, adding that he would only resign if the Pope himself asked him to. The Irish News told its readers that it had contacted the Holy See press office, only to be told that it had “nothing” to say on the matter.
     The Pope himself, though, may be facing his own problems, as there are questions that as Archbishop Ratzinger of Munich in 1980 he approved the transfer of a suspected paedophile priest for therapy, instead of prosecution. O Connor reports that “the Vatican is angrily dismissing the story.” In the present climate many people might question such “dismissing.”
     The Irish News quoted a representative of the “leading” lay group Voice of the Faithful as questioning whether Brady could stay on as leader of Ireland’s Catholics and challenged him to explain why he should not resign.
     O Connor finished by writing that picketing churches, and whole congregations refusing to attend Mass, would make the bishops take notice; “signs are they will understand nothing else.”
     As the T-shirt slogan says, “Just do it!”

Home page  >  Publications  >  Unity  >  Just do it!
Baile  >  Foilseacháin  >  Unity  >  Just do it!