The Cardinal Brady issue… March 16, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.trackback
Some of us may be a bit puzzled to read a piece by Harry McGee in the Irish Times yesterday that references in some detail the Brendan Smyth controversy as it impacted on the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition, leading to its eventual collapse.
IN OCTOBER 1994, Fianna Fáil and Labour had been in coalition for almost two years when a major controversy arose that would eventually lead to the collapse of the government.
…
Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left formed a rainbow coalition for the remaining 2½ years of the term, with John Bruton as taoiseach.
Hard to see the direct relevance of that to the current issue, unless the idea is that the Smyth affair having brought down a government is now set to cause significant damage to a Cardinal.
And what of the Cardinal? He appears determined not to resign in light of the information that has emerged about his part in a canonical inquiry in 1975 as regards that same child abuser Brendan Smyth.
Cardinal Brady yesterday defended his role at the meeting where a boy (10) and a girl (14) who were abused by Smyth were forced to take a vow of silence. He denied he helped to cover up cases of alleged sex abuse of children in the diocese of Kilmore and insisted he would not resign.
And…
Smyth pleaded guilty to 74 charges of sexually abusing children between 1958 and 1993. Sentenced to seven years in prison, Smyth (70) died in jail in 1997.
The cardinal was a priest and a teacher in Kilmore when he was asked to interview two children, under oath of secrecy, by the then bishop Dr Francis McKiernan. He said these interviews formed the basis of the action taken to remove Smyth from pastoral ministry, adding that he was not the “designated person” to report the issue to the civil authorities. He also denied the oath of secrecy was designed to protect the church.
That’s a tough place to walk back from even, or despite it, being indicative of a mindset prevalent then and after in the Catholic Church.
And the apologia’s abroad aren’t helping any…
Speaking on Today with Pat Kenny , Monsignor Maurice Dooley, former Professor of Canon Law, said Cardinal Daly had “no obligation whatsoever” to report anything to the gardaí.
“There is no law in Ireland or statute that requires that clergy report crimes to the police,” he added.
Monsignor Dooley pointed to paragraph 1.16 of the Murphy report, saying: “it says quite clearly that the clergy, the bishops and so on, had no obligation to report anything to the police”.
“Is it a sin against the law of God not to report matters to the police …no I don’t think so…because there are certain people exempt from this moral obligation to report to the police,” he said.
An useful insight, is it not?
As ever in Ireland, the class dimension is ignored. It ought to be remembered that at the time when Brady enforced this oath on two scared kids, priests represented a sizable percentage of all of those who had ever been to a university; so, as well as the deference they commanded through religious awe, they were also ‘educated men’ at a time when relatively few men, and much fewer women counted as such. And this fact greatly magnified the social power they exercised. That, and the fact that they were ex officio middle-class and ‘respectable’ – and its a truism that is none the less true that ‘respectable’ and ‘not respectable’ delineated class in Ireland outside the cities until recently – meant that the only people likely to be their equals in terms of education and ‘culture’ in smaller towns were teachers – who would, of course, have been employed by the church.
And the persistent arrogance of men such as Brady indicates not just that they put the good name of the church before the suffering their colleagues inflicted or might inflict again, but that they instinctively put the interests of their class, of the ‘respectable’ before the common good. And of course the victims of abuse were almost definitively (though not exclusively) from poorer backgrounds – and obviously kids who were entirely unprotected in institutions.
You would have to wonder how many other children did Cardinal Brady swear to secrecy over the years.
In the Indo today Monsignor Dooley in another stunning article he ends with the lines…
‘Since canon law normally debars minors under 14 from being admitted to give evidence, I would like more detail on the alleged oath of secrecy that the children were required to take before I would accept it as true.
I would regard any such oath as inappropriate for such young children.
There is therefore no justification for the campaign demanding episcopal resignations.’
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/maurice-dooley-bishops-were-not-obliged-to-tell-gardai-of-abuse-2099999.html
In todays Times Patsy McGarry hits the nail on the head.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0316/1224266350973.html
Its hard to see any way back now for the Church, I also think its time that senior church figures get charged in relation to he multitude of cover ups. It may be the only thing that could make them realise the gravity of what they have done.
On Vincent Browne last night it was suggested that it would be possible to charge Cardinal Brady under laws that were valid in 1975. What better a test case than this.
Yeah.
On the bit of PK I could stomach, there was a lot of people disavowing any intention of conducting a ‘witchhunt’ against the church – and a lot of sneaking regarders regretting that the scales might have shifted and now ‘innocent’ priests might be victims.
Well, tough. I was toying briefly last night with a few ideas that might bring home to the CC the enormity of what they’ve done: a revival of Section 31 perhaps, or maybe – for comic effect – the British version, so that any bishop would have to have his voice dubbed by an actor? Maybe it’s time to have another look at some of the milder Penal laws? particularly the ones outlawing seminaries and Catholic schools?
On a more serious point: I’d be interested in a Venn diagram that might illustrate the overlap between those who support Monsignor Doorley’s position and those who would support Rowan Williams actually quite intelligent proposals vis-a vis Sharia law and its recognition by the state….. I would reckon those who would be prepared to support the primacy of theocratic juridical reason in this regard would only extend such support to one variety thereof.
“Maybe it’s time to have another look at some of the milder Penal laws? ”
LOL
I’m sure John Paul McCarthy would say all the penal laws were mild….
“Rowan Williams actually quite intelligent proposals vis-a vis Sharia law and its recognition by the state” – what!!!
Rowan Williams was trying to use “multi-culturism” to support special pleading for religion in the UK. Shocking. These purveyors of superstitious babble are running scared at an increasingly non, possibly anti-religious (in terms of the views of most of the population, not the govt or the law) society and are trying to weedle in some kind of protection for them. I don’t mean laws guaranteeing freedom of religion, which are only right, I mean special favours, some of which they have already (e.g. state support for faith-based schools), but are concerned to keep, and maybe extend.
On the issue of child abuse and the Catholic clergy. One thing stands out for me, tey still don’t get it do they? How outraged people are, how terrible the things they did or covered up are, how they betrayed the trust of the “faithful”. The people were faithful but they were not.
Grovelling abject apologies from the Pope, nit the mealy mouthed stuff we get, are required. Full and complete disclosure of all records the church has on peadophile priests, vigorouts prosecutions of the guilty by the state.
The comments about the Catholic Church and its relationship to the justice system and the state reveal that the lessons of the reformation have been lost on them, even 500 years later. Oh…Ireland didn’t really have a reformation, at least an indigenous one – pity.
Having John Gormley join in calls for your resignation must be the final indignity – the Denis Healey line about being ‘savaged by a dead sheep’ springs to mind!
Ah, that old chestnut about Canon Law and what it says or doesn’t say. It has as much official standing as the rules of scrabble for all I care. The law of the land, of our democratic republic is the only law worth measuring actions of right or wrong against.
Secondly, this Pastoral Letter from the Pope is a bit like the government reshuffle. Any chance it may have helped the Church through its perennial crisis evaporated long ago. Who really cares what the Pope thinks anymore.
Benny’s own head may be on the chopping block soon enough.
Bit of a debating point, i guess, but it’s strange that the church is keen to peddle the line about the past being another country when talking about events of a mere 30 years ago, but will insist on the relevance and absolute contemporaneity of a disputed act of jurisprudence all of two millenia ago….
Good point, SoS, on the Church’s relevant times.
Martin McGuinness has said Brady has to consider his position. Cowan has taken the attitude that it’s none of the government’s business. My considered opinion that several bishops should be executed.
Ultimatly its the Guards that are responsible for allowing this to continue,. failure to report a crime is serious enough.But getting children to swear not to talk any further/report the crime under punishment of excommunication ,just has to be a crime/illegal,Civic authority is primary and has to take all responsibility.The church needs to be investigated root and branch in all matters, it seems that they have been operating as a law unto themselves.The swimming crowd where treated much more harshly( not saying they did’nt deserve it) and if the Guards dont act ,where do we go.
I do wonder why the failings of the State authorities do not get the same attention. Maybe it’s because we cannot name a specific Chief Superintendent X in the Gardaí or a Senior Inspector Y in the Department of Education in the same way we can name Cardinal Seán Brady or Archbishop Dermot Ryan. In saying that, I do not claim those state institutions have not been criticised, but I do notice that specific, named individuals in them are not now being held accountable for their failures of ten, twenty or thirty years ago.
And I am reminded that the failings of some non-religious bodies went beyond failing to act and include sins of commission. A post on Irish Left Review recounts one person’s experience of being stonewalled by the ISPCC, who took a court case to have them taken from their father when they were a child.
Talking of sacking I gather that a letter from the British Atorney General was not passed to the Irish one for 7 months.We need sacking left right and centre of those who failed to act.
Mind you it would have been a brave civil servant who would blow the whistle on the church.
One thing that gets up by nose is the spreading of the blame.It was society, it was our culture.
It is time for people to take responsibility for acts of commission and ommission.
Mind you if the bishops had the luck of senior civil servants they would get added pension and be exempt from cuts.
Couldn’t agree more with you about the ‘spreading of the blame’ issue. It’s getting ridiculous. We hear far too much of it in regards to people who have no link at all to issues bar living on the same island.
While I agree entirely,that the blame lies within the clergy,do you not think that the Guards should be more active in prosecuting and investigating.It seems to me that the Guards are only allowed investigate joe public,while Church,Banks,Corrupt politicians ,etc,etc,get their own tribunals and reports.If the Church was allowed carry on like this and a blind eye turned then other people where indeed guilty of collusion or is that not a crime.
Monsignor Dooley was back showing the churches real spots again in todays Indo (get it free in work!). None of your different times, sharing the hurt etc etc… for the Monsignor.
Mgr Dooley was asked what action he would take if a paedophile priest approached him now to confide his crimes.
“I would not tell anyone,” he said. “That is his responsibility. I am considering only my responsibility. My responsibility is to maintain the confidentiality of information which I had been given under the contract of confidentiality.
“There must be somebody else aware of what he is up to, and he could be stopped. It is not my function.
“I would tell (the priest) to stop abusing children,” he added.
So if someone told me they were going to say burn down a chouch or something that was actually terrible, it would not be my duty to inform the cops. Have I got it right, after all I am not a sky pliot.
Church tribunals operate both independently and parallel to a civil court. The complaint about Fr Smyth was made to the diocese, not to the police. The oath of secrecy administered would not have precluded the victim from reporting the crime to the Gardaí. They obviously chose not to. The secrecy demanded only applies to information given in the tribunal. This is not limited to tribunals for suspension; most tribunals, including those for marriage annulments, are ordinarily conducted in secret. According to Vatacanista John Allen, of the National Catholic Reporter: “First, it is designed to allow witnesses and other parties to speak freely, knowing that their responses will be confidential. Second, it allows the accused party to protect his good name until guilt is established. Third, it allows victims to come forward without exposing themselves to publicity.”
For Cardinal Brady to have reported the incident to the Gardaí would have required specifying a complaint and providing evidence hence ‘outing’ a victim who had given this information in confidence. Personally if one of my friends told me she was raped, I doubt I would inform the Guards against her wishes.
Paedophilia is different because we know paedophiles have a high reoffending rate. But that is a fact which is only relatively recently established; the first academic study into repeat offending was done in the late 70s (1979?). Freud, mystified by the high incidence of abuse reported to him, taught that these children were merely projecting guilt about sexual issues onto adults.
According to Dr GP Lewis:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/1231/1224261476404.html
Madam, – Niall O’Donohoe (December 7th) referred to Prof Neil O’Doherty’s lecture in 1980 concerning sexual abuse of children and the resulting severe criticism Prof O’Doherty received for even suggesting such things were happening in Ireland of that time.
Now I feel strongly that it is in the context of that time and later that this issue should be studied and not the partially media driven witch-hunt and scapegoating of auxiliary bishops of Dublin past and present. Truth and justice is not served in such scapegoating.
As was revealed, of course serious errors of judgment were made by the church authorities, but they were made in the context of the time. This is not by way of making excuses for the great damage that so many suffered by these crimes of depravity committed by men who totally betrayed the scared trust given to them at ordination.
Less than 20 years ago most educated people had never heard of the word paedophilia. As far as I am aware, professional and statutory bodies did not know how to deal with the problem when it arose. The judiciary would give out suspended sentences with a warning to offenders. The social services and Garda would often ignore information given to them of allegations in their area. They were extremely hesitant to intrude into the privacy of a family where such abuse might be happening.
The psychological/psychiatric professions sent offenders on treatment programmes and would often certify such people back to their location, or ministry in the case of priests, not realising that a very high percentage reoffended.
Finally. the Department of Education more often than not ignored very abusive teachers in primary and secondary schools throughout the country for decades and teachers’ unions likewise did very little to remove such teachers.
It was only about 15 years ago, when survivors of abuse felt free to tell their stories and be heard in the process, that it finally dawned on society – and not just the church – how appalling a crime sexual abuse is and the great damage it has caused.
Of course one can say the leaders in the Catholic Church should have known better, but in the context of the time they unfortunately did not. They failed – as other professions likewise failed. If bishops have to resign, then, in justice, leaders of other professions and statutory bodies who made serious errors of judgment in this matter should likewise resign. (Letter to the Editor of the Irish Times; Thursday, December 31, 2009)
The obvious response is that these were children, and that it wasn’t a case of them deciding or not whether to tell about the crime. It was beholden on proper authorities, including church ones to do so, so the adult rape comparison doesn’t hold up. Secondly I’m deeply dubious that ‘most educated’ people hadn’t heard about paedophilia in 1989 (not even sure what he means by ‘educated’ people) which is twenty years before Lewis writes. I know I had, and the broader term of child abuse was well known. I was in my mid 20s at that point, and paedophilia isn’t a word whose usage suddenly came into vogue later. Indeed I think that that argument is pretty thin. I remember knowing about and being warned about the danger of child abuse much earlier than that when a child. I doubt I was unusual.
Indeed the more I think about it the less plausible that argument seems. It is true that the scale of the situation wasn’t quite as evident, but then I’d imagine that the clergy, or at least the hierarchy would have had a notion how bad it was.
I’d agree with that: i went to 4 different secondary schools: because of the nature of my father’s job; we moved around a lot, and in three of those schools, I was aware, or deliberately made aware of which priest or brother it was advisable not to be alone with: and I knew why too, from about the age of 14 onwards. What shocks me know is that we just took it as another commonplace hazard, not much scarier than the casual brutality that other religious – and non- religious – teachers were capable of. And the exception, by the way, was a VEC where I repeated my leaving. This was in the mid to late seventies.
Shane’s post is an interesting example of the fightback underway on behalf of the church. The “context of the times” argument rings really hollow and is getting sickening at this point. From my recollection the church and churchmen seemed to me to have an encyclopediac knowledge of human sexuality; or, as they would say “perversions”.
I recall McQuaid had an interest in tampons; I can personally recall regular sermons against masturbation and, without going into details, know for a fact that clergy took a close interest in the sex lives of married couples not so long ago.
They also had the confessional where many victims may have made know what they were experiencing, and perhaps some abusers confessed.
And the criminal law has been clear throughout the twentieth century about the unlawfulness of child abuse. And, to drag out an old cliche, ignorance of the law is no defence.
“Shane’s post is an interesting example of the fightback underway on behalf of the church.”
And I think the challenge is to prevent the line of argument in Shane’s post from being used to prevent the individual gardaí or Department of Education officials who brushed things under the carpet from evading responsibility too. Yes, Brady and colleagues must be made to answer, but not at the price of letting others off the hook.
Couldn’t agree more Tomboktu.
Did anyone hear David Quinn on yesterday’s ‘Drivetime’? He essentially was arguing that the Church should be given a pass until such time as every sector of society has faced up to the extent of child abuse in the past and present. A noxious argument, but a good example of how the Church’s spin doctors are marshalling media savvy members of the laity for the fightback. Expect to see fewer members of the clergy trying to defend the Church and more of Quinn and his ilk.
Sadly, I think the Church will wait this one out and rely on it’s many Fifth Columnists within the professions and the state administration. A key part of that will be to ensure that the Ferns Inquiry and the Dublin diocesan inquiry are the only inquiries that are held (with perhaps a bit of lee-way for Cobh and, at a stretch, Raphoe) and, in that way, a clear picture of extent of clerical child abuse, on a diocese-by-diocese basis, will never emerge and the Church can get back to what it does best and enjoys most: making money.
When I had my first child, I found myself doing the rounds of my mothers friends with the infant. The usual compliments were paid, lovely baby, spit of you, spit of the mother etc etc
I was struck though by the number of times I heard the remark “hes a beautiful child, you’d want to watch out in case they’d run away with him” .
I wondered afterwards who the ‘they’ were and was the origin of the phrase as nasty as I suspected.
‘They’ are surely the fairies, who, as far as I know, couldn’t have children of their own and were always looking for handsome human ones to take. They’d substitute changelings, who were usually handicapped or damaged in some way.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling
As I wrote that, it struck me that you could substitute ‘clergy’ for ‘fairies’ and it makes just as much sense.
I remember one of these cunts sneering at unmarried mothers and people who were separated while urging us to vote against divorce. Everyone knew child abuse was wrong: that is the context. They hushed it up. Fuck them.
Shane Wrote:
“”.. we know paedophiles have a high reoffending rate. But that is a fact which is only relatively recently established; the first academic study into repeat offending was done in the late 70s (1979?).”"
But the Church and the Religious Orders (particularly in the Institutions) already knew that the abusers in their ranks were re-offending again and again long long before 1979 – no academic study was needed to establish that. Just a cursory read of Peter Tyrrell book on Letterfrack [Founded on Fear] would bear that out.
I think all of the congregations of the Catholic Church should nominate a Sunday in the next few weeks and on that day at mass, all should stand up and turn their backs to the priest during his sermon/homily as a sign of protest against the cardinal and the pope
I notice that RTÉ’s angle on reaction to the Pope’s statement this has changed since yesterday. On Saturday, the reactions they were reporting (after summarising the letter, Cardinal Brady’s reaction and CORI’s reaction) that One in Four was “disappointed” and that Andrew Madden said the letter “failed to address the issue at all seriously”, followed by a supportive statement from Irish Survivors of Child Abuse.
Today, the lead headline on the RTÉ Radio One news all morning and on the website has been “Abuse survivors’ group welcomes Papal apology”.
Going from an ‘also ran’ at the end of a long story to being the lead in the main news item is some change.