Ireland Erupts

The story of Ireland's cardinal Brady is just beginning to permeate the US MSM. Yesterday, for the first time, he issued what seemed to be a heartfelt apology for once ordering two children to keep silent after they were sexually assaulted by a priest. But abuse survivors remain adamant he should resign, and one of his key defenders, Monsignor Maurice Dooley, yesterday threw gasoline on the fire with remarks on BBC Ulster. Asked whether he would report sex abuse by a priest today, the Monsignor said:

"I would not tell anyone. 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. But I am not going to go to the police or social services in order to betray the trust he has put in me."

Dooley wrote the same in an op-ed in the Independent of Ireland. In Ulster, the following is reported today:

The Catholic Church faced further allegations of covering up child sex abuse in Ireland today after claims that a girl abused by a priest was sworn to secrecy in an out-of-court settlement as recently as 2000. The victim went public with her claims that she was abused over a 10-year period by an unnamed priest, but said she was bound to secrecy in a legal deal which involved the Bishop of Derry Seamus Hegarty.

The latest case involves a woman who said that a decade of abuse by a priest who had befriended her family began in 1979. She told her parents only on the day of her 18th birthday after becoming overwhelmed by events. A spokesman for Bishop Hegarty said today he was aware of the case, but would not be commenting until a detailed review of the file had been carried out.

Columns like this one are popping up:

A good friend of mine is one of them. She is a young woman who has survived an appalling start in life and the most horrific abuse to go on and build a real future for herself and her family.

She is utterly magnificent. And only occasionally does she allow herself to be swept back to thinking about the horror of her childhood. Inevitably she was forced to relive that again this week. I imagine the same has been true for most victims.

Where does all this end?

There is no doubt that the secondary victims of the rogue priests include the Church itself and the vast overwhelming majority of the good men and women who serve within it. The decent majority have been stained by the crimes of an evil minority.

But what when the evil minority were protected by the very top of the institution? What when the Pope himself was told a boy of eleven years old was raped by a priest and merely sent the priest to therapy, didn't report anything to the civil authorities, and the priests went on to rape and abuse countless more? And was only removed from the priesthood this year?

This is not going away. If Brady resigns, how can the Pope stay?

(Photo: Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of Ireland's Roman Catholic Church, is pictured at St Patricks Cathedral in Armagh, Northern Ireland, on March 17, 2010. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland apologised 'with all my heart' Wednesday over his role in a child sex abuse controversy which has rocked the country. Cardinal Sean Brady has faced calls to quit from victims' groups over his attendance at meetings in 1975 where children allegedly abused by one of Ireland's worst serial paedophiles were asked to take a vow of secrecy. By Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images)