1 Boring Old Man

Irish Cardinal Apologizes for Role in Abuse Scandal
New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS and RACHEL DONADIO
March 17, 2010

^{DUBLIN — The besieged leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland said Wednesday he was “ashamed” of the role he had played decades ago in handling accusations of child sex abuse against a priest who went on to sexually assault scores of children, and hinted that he might bow to calls for his resignation.}

^{“I want to say to anyone who has been hurt by any failure on my part that I apologize to you with all my heart,” Cardinal Sean Brady said in an extraordinary St. Patrick’s Day sermon in Northern Ireland. “I also apologize to all those who feel I have let them down. Looking back, I am ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess and believe in.”}

^{He delivered his broad apology two days before Pope Benedict XVI is due to issue a letter to Irish bishops addressing the abuse crisis. In unscripted remarks during his weekly audience on Wednesday, the pope said the letter’s release on Friday would help “repentance, healing and renewal.”}

^{The widening abuse scandal has rocked Ireland, one of the world’s most heavily Catholic countries, and roiled dioceses across Europe in recent weeks, even reaching into the Vatican with questions about Benedict’s role in the handling of an abuse case while he was an archbishop in Germany.}

^{Cardinal Brady has faced numerous calls for his resignation in recent days, in the wake of revelations that he took part in an abuse investigation in 1975 in which 10-year-old and a 14-year-old were forced to sign secrecy oaths as part of the church’s inquiry into their accounts. Cardinal Brady never went to the police, and the priest, the Rev. Brendan Smyth, was arrested in the 1990s and admitted to molesting and raping about 100 children in Ireland and the United States.}

^{In a interview with Irish state radio on Monday, Cardinal Brady answered the resignation calls — some from within the Irish clergy, others from victims of child abuse, parents and advocacy groups — by saying that he was “not a manager and not a bishop” when, as a 36-year-old priest then working as a secondary school teacher, he was asked by his bishop to participate in interviews with the two children who said they had been abused by Father Smyth.}

^{“I have said that I don’t think it’s a resigning matter,” he said. “I’ve also heard other calls, many other calls, to stay and to continue the work of addressing this most difficult problem.” He said he would “only resign if asked by the Holy Father”…}

As I mentioned earlier [Papal Fallibility…], a celibate clergy is advertised as creating greater spiritual depth, but actually originated as a way for the Church to hold onto its property. The evidence is on the table that while there may be some very spiritual priests, the Church is losing the priest-recruitment battle and the number of pedophiles in the priesthood is staggering. This is where the Catholic Church is operating at its worst. There’s no scriptural call for a celibate priesthood. It’s just something that somebody a long time ago thought up. And it’s a recruitment downer. Who wants to end up dying as a horny old priest or nun? But mostly, it has created a haven for criminals. Seducing young children is against the law in most jurisdictions I know. Paying off the children and moving the priest to a new procurement site is not the punishment prescribed.