Cardinal urged to quit over sex abuse

The head of Catholic Church in Ireland is being urged to resign after he admitted being at meetings where victims of a notorious paedophile priest were forced to take a vow of silence.

Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady confirmed he was present when teenagers signed an oath not to reveal the church was investigating Fr Brendan Smyth in 1975.

Smyth – who is believed to have abused hundreds of children over 40 years – was jailed in the mid-1990s and died in prison.

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Maeve Lewis, of support group One in Four, accused the Cardinal of reckless endangerment and said he had no credibility to give leadership while the Catholic church is being rocked by sex abuse scandals.

“We cannot know how many children may have been saved from harm if Brendan Smyth had been prosecuted in the 1970s, but all those who were party to the decision to protect him carry a heavy responsibility for the victims suffering,” said Ms Lewis.

“As leader of the Irish Catholic Church Cardinal Brady must be at the forefront of the church’s response to the sex abuse scandals.

“He has also spoken in the past months about the need for accountability for failures to safeguard children.

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“This latest disclosure removes Cardinal Brady’s credibility to provide the leadership that is so vital at this time, leaving him no option but to resign .”

The Cardinal, who is being sued by a victim for not passing allegations about Smyth on to the police, and his bishops were summoned to Rome last month after two reports criticised mishandling of child sex abuse.

While one found the Catholic Church and Irish Government covered up almost four decades of sexual abuse and beatings by priests and nuns of thousands of children in state care, another revealed a catalogue of cover-ups by the Catholic hierarchy in Dublin to protect the church.

The latest revelation emerged as the Catholic Information Office confirmed the Cardinal was aware of paedophile priests who continued to abuse.

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It said that in 1975 Fr Sean Brady, as he then was, was part-time secretary to the-then Bishop of Kilmore and as such attended two meetings and recorded answers.

“At those meetings the complainants signed undertakings, on oath, to respect the confidentiality of the information-gathering process.”

Colm O’Gorman, a victim of clerical abuse, said it was obscene that Smyth’s victims had to sign oaths of secrecy.

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