Information update on media reporting on Cardinal Seán Brady
The Catholic Communications Office wishes to bring to the attention of news editors that the story which was covered this week in the media concerning Cardinal Brady was first reported in the Sunday Mirror on 10 August 1997. Please see published copy below:
Archbishop Brady knew about evil Smyth for 22 YEARS; THE STORY THAT WILL SHOCK IRELAND.
Author: White, Declan; date: Aug 10, 1997; Publication: Sunday Mirror (London, England)
Archbishop Sean Brady, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, has admitted he helped investigate sex abuse monster Father Brendan Smyth 22 YEARS ago.
He was part of a secret tribunal which failed to notify the police after an altar boy told how pervert priest Smyth had abused him.
The evil cleric’s victims are now demanding that Archbishop Brady – who was hand-picked by the Pope to become Archbishop of Armagh – be sacked.
His role in the tribunal will be a huge embarrassment for the Catholic Church, which is reeling from a series of sex scandals.
It will further rock the Irish faithful who trust their children to Church leaders.
Bishop Francis McKiernan, who was head of the tribunal, apologised two years ago for not telling police about Smyth at the time of the probe.
But the Catholic Church did not reveal that its most senior priest had been part of the tribunal.
Smyth was jailed for 12 years last month after admitting 74 sex attacks on 13 girls and seven boys aged from six to 15 between 1967 and 1993.
The sex monster, who caused the collapse of the Reynolds Government in 1994, was extradited to the Republic after being caged twice in Northern Ireland for a similar reign of terror.
Smyth, now 70, spent over 40 years sexually assaulting children in Ireland, America, Scotland and Wales.
Catholic churchmen never reported his horrendous crimes to the Gardai and his case became the Church’s biggest embarrassment this century.
The tribunal, which met in Dundalk in 1975, heard a 10-year-old altar boy tell about Smyth sexually abusing him while on holidays in Co Cork.
The victim now has two children and lives in the UK. Friends say he still lives a tortured life because of Smyth’s abuse. He claims the tribunal told him that such abuse would never happen again and that the Church “would sort things out”.
But Smyth was “punished” only by being barred from hearing confessions … and he went on to molest dozens of other children.
The Archbishop, a hardliner on divorce, contraception and abortion, has the reputation of being a born leader.
Some Church watchers have even tipped him to become a future Pope.
He comes from small Co Cavan farming stock and his father was a Fianna Fail councillor. One of Smyth’s victims , Mary from Belfast, said: “The tribunal did not report a horrendous crime which then led to more children suffering hellish lives.
“How can the Archbishop live with his conscience? He must resign …if not, the Pope should sack him.”
The Catholic Church has admitted Archbishop Brady was at the 1975 inquiry into Smyth.
The Catholic Press and Information Office said this week: “Father Sean Brady, now Archbishop of Armagh, was at the time of the 1975 tribunal a full-time post-primary teacher and a part-time secretary to the diocese of Kilmore. He was asked by the Bishop of Kilmore to attend the tribunal in Dundalk.
“Father Brady’s role was to record the boy’s evidence.””
The Church is now obliged to report allegations of sex abuse to the Gardai immediately. But abuse victim Mary said last night: “Archbishop Brady has to go. How could any parent trust him if another pervert priest is reported to him?
“Will the Archbishop believe abused children or again try to uphold the Church’s reputation? He has no get-out clause to dampen his conscience. Any normal person would report a terrible crime.
“Sex abuse is a crime whether it was committed 22 or 52 years ago.”
ROMEO bishop Eamonn Casey has been forgiven for a love-child scandal which rocked the Church.
Casey has been told he can return from his hideaway in Ecuador by officials who say his Seventies affair with American Annie Murphy pales compared to the perversions of priests such as Father Brendan Smyth.
ENDS
Further information:
Martin Long, Director of Communications 086 172 7678
