34 Comments

• bernadettemarie | Jun 14, 2012, 12:31 PM EDT

  I think it is disgraceful and also an act of disobedience against God by ostracising Cardinal Brady. Whatever they feel or do not feel they need to get behind their leader and support him. They are doing the devil's work and not God's. I will continue to pray to Our Blessed Mother for Cardinal Brady to help him - what can be worse than be persecuted by your own men!! I can't imagine what Our Lord will say to these so-called "priests" when he meets them. God Bless You Cardinal Brady - I hate bullies.

• KatieMurphy | May 22, 2012, 03:12 AM EDT

  Just atnoehr in the endless list of horrible crimes by the church - that alsos includes the promotion of Dolan to cardinal...... Dolan btw cooked the books in Milwaukee (put the money in funeral / cemetary trusts0 then had his dicocese declare bankruptcy......to prevent paying off and really admitting the endless abuse of children M and F in his care............the whole arrogant church except for some cowed into silence good people is a blight on the western world and looks every day more like Islam where child abuse is a way of life and a part of growing up in that male dominated monster

• Portia777 | May 21, 2012, 11:13 AM EDT

  he should be arrested and jailed for aiding and abetting child rapists. It is that simple,

• IrelandNorth | May 21, 2012, 07:49 AM EDT

  Like many people, I had a very good Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic upbringing. Like them, it took me a lifetime to get over it. Yet, a lot of what masquerades as objective journalism is in fact a orchestrated campaign by hidden agendists who lurk among the shadows. Since metaphysics abhors a vacuum too, with what demon will we replace the HRC&AC to prevent seven others moving in?

• Tooreenagrena | May 20, 2012, 08:35 AM EDT

  He has to go.

• skerryc | May 20, 2012, 08:23 AM EDT

  This is the best news out of Ireland, that Cardinal Brady is losing the support from his ouw flock of priests. Now, maybe he'll either step down or resign. But I bet you money, the Vatican will hide him in the Pope's bedroom like they did to Cardinal Law of Boston.

• seamus60 | May 19, 2012, 07:50 PM EDT

  philib04 The catholic church is an embarrassment to the catholic church as it goes right to the top. They all embarrass the catholic faith.

• seamus60 | May 19, 2012, 07:46 PM EDT

  Philib04. He should resign my ass, he should be jailed and serve his time in with the peados.

• pilib04 | May 19, 2012, 07:41 PM EDT

  correction: jacersagain, we call your excuse the Sandusky Principle.

• eiriamach | May 19, 2012, 07:39 PM EDT

  jacers, I said that Lt. Calley's soldiers followed his order even though he ordered a massacre with no military purpose. They refused to think beyond the authority that the code gave Calley and the duty it gave them to obey him. There's a kind of bewitchment at work in our deference to authority figures. Cardinal Brady, like Calley's men, deferred to authority when he should have acted autonomously (why do we have a God-given free will and conscience? To behave like puppets of powerful puppeteers?). Harming civilians is wrong, as those soldiers knew, yet it's a recurring barbarity of war, perhaps of any situation with a hierarchy of power. In the "Iliad," Homer describes Achille's desecration of the body of Hector (it was not his only barbarity, but a clear-cut case of primordial destructiveness unleashed by military discipline). None of Colley's soldiers was convicted of a crime, and Calley served only a few years in prison for the murders. Similarly, the impulse to protect the institution, though children were severely harmed, overwhelmed or silenced Brady's conscience; no one will indict him because people have such awe for authority! Why are you arguing the same moral relativism as hermitT when such a "context" gives no excuse? Same bewitchment I'd guess.

• pilib04 | May 19, 2012, 07:38 PM EDT

  jacersagain, we your excuse the Sandusky Principle. Glad you can live with rapists in our Church leadership. I can't and won't. These men are disgusting! Law, Brady, Levada, they are all thug-cardinals. They all belong in jail. Law and Levada hide out in the Vatican. Presumably Brady will be joining them soon.

• seamus60 | May 19, 2012, 07:36 PM EDT

  Jaceragain. Brady and others have gone to great lengths in more recent times to insure most of what went on would never see the light of day. Never mind the father having to sit outside the room all those years ago. The victims have been further abused, by their denial in any talking shops set up to deal with the issue at hand. Bradys hands are as dirty as a coalmans.

• pilib04 | May 19, 2012, 07:34 PM EDT

  seamus, what you leave out is how morally wrong it is for a bishop to hide a priest-child rapist! Brady should resign, he is an embarrassment to the Catholic Church. Of course the same is true for perhaps hundreds of other bishops.

• seamus60 | May 19, 2012, 07:20 PM EDT

  Hermit talker. It was as moraly wrong in 1973 to rape a child as it is now. Regardless of cannon or any other law Bradys own moral compass should have shone through. As it clearly did not ,he was hardly fit for purpose of priesthood. His more recent antics have hardly gave his credability as a Cardinal anymore purpose. You are 100% about some who now lamblast the Cardinal having covered up the same. They do this in the comfort of a crazy mans myth that should they be treated the same as others a certain peace process could or would collaspse. As the Cardinal they are only men and should be treated the same or we are all hypocrits.

• jacersagain | May 19, 2012, 06:59 PM EDT

  ciaradexy - your post is all over the place. I saw that TV programme a few weeks ago. The man said that the abusing priest said Mass knowing that he abused children in a room behind the altar. Cardinal Brady never said Mass in that Donegal church knowing about the abuse. Never. Do not post lies, please; be sure of your facts first.

• jacersagain | May 19, 2012, 06:52 PM EDT

  Geeze eiriamach! You have some nerve saying the murders at My Lai were under military code and comparable to canon law. Murdering innocent citizens is NOT accepted as part of military code... asks any official from the Courts in The Hague about Ratko Mladic. I think it’s outrageous of you to make such comparisons, way below your usual well-thought out standards. I totally agree with hermitTalker who very neutrally gives the facts that should be viewed on their own in the context of the time. Cardinal Brady’s actions 43 years ago were no different from, say, a policeman reporting a crime of family child abuse to his Superintendent Officers who ultimately decide whether to pursue the case in Courts of Law. If the Super decides not to follow the case up, or fails to act, the policeman is not at fault and is not obliged to resign because his superiors didn’t act. Let’s be real about all this. Cardinal Brady NEVER sheltered a child abuser. All of you Brady-bashers should face up to that truth.

• seamus60 | May 19, 2012, 06:47 PM EDT

  Sopium. Come and get him. He`s all yours.

• ciaradexy | May 19, 2012, 06:42 PM EDT

  This man facilitated paedophiles. I watched the tv programme last week where they interview the man who reported he was being abused. He also gave the names of other kids at risk and gave details about their abuse and yet he said mass knowing that kids were being raped in a room at the back of the alter in his church in Donegal! He facilitated a paedophile ring. Jail him until he dies.

• seamus60 | May 19, 2012, 06:41 PM EDT

  Suffer little children on to me....and my priests. Anyone sheltering peadophiles or worse moving them on to fresh victims in fresh hunting grounds should share the same cell and time as the peado . WITHOUT EXCEPTION

• ciaradexy | May 19, 2012, 06:37 PM EDT

  Seamus and Sophium, this man knew children were being raped by priests and kept it quiet! Hes as responsible for their abuse as the users of internet porn are. he basically ran a paedophile ring. Jail him, he and his ilk have hurt my country and my people beyond repair.

• Ms.Gail | May 19, 2012, 06:22 PM EDT

  Well stated eiriamach. There are plenty of good religous, one with moral cowardice deserves to be reviled.

• EphraimKibbey | May 19, 2012, 04:36 PM EDT

  Thanks, eiriamach! Sadly, with Bradley Manning in jail over "Wikileaks" even though we are supposed to have a "Whistle Blower's" Law, America still seeks to cover up MY Lai like atrocities for our military. We haven't learned much in the last half century about following orders, conscience or lying.

• Searlit | May 19, 2012, 03:37 PM EDT

  Great post eiriamach!

• eiriamach | May 19, 2012, 02:51 PM EDT

  Cardinal Brady "did his job" in the same way that Second Lt. William Calley's 'Charlie" Company soldiers did their job in March 1968, when they raped and slaughtered hundreds of Vietnamese infants, women, and elderly non-combatants in the village of My Lai. The soldiers were only carrying out their commander's order, and the 100's of killings just "collateral damage," unavoidable under wartime pressures, right? Mass murder or serial rape, it was just 'collateral damage'; Brady adhered to the hierarchy of authority set out by canon law, just as Lt. Calley's men adhered to military code. The subtle evil of Brady's just "doing his job" rather than acting on conscience to alert parents (he had their names) and police culminated in the patent evil of dozens more children molested after his interviews with Smyth's victims. And the gross immorality of his inaction culminates in moral contagion when Catholics rush to defend him as just a good soldier of the Vatican, just doing his job, never exceeding his authority within the hierarchy. Just doing your job is damnable-- not defensible-- when doing your job enables a foreseeable and avoidable harm to the most vulnerable members of the body of Christ. Then hermitTalker goes further: "To apply 2012 standards 20-20 to 1973 is ludicrous." The standard of conscience is imposed by God-- universal, timeless, and knowable without consulting any book of canon or civil law. To judge Brady by the standards of 1973 canon law and church bureaucracy is classic, morally blind, moral relativism at its most blatant.

• Bythebay | May 19, 2012, 02:21 PM EDT

  Brady had knowledge of the horrendous abuse and should have reported the crimes. The abuse continued for decades. Brady has had a no confidence vote. Jail him asap for his collusion.

• hermitTalker | May 19, 2012, 01:13 PM EDT

  I have followed Church news around the world for over 40 years, still do in retirement from journalism. Facts are important in any discussion. Sean Brady as a junior priest did his job, he recorded the interviews, went to Belfast to interview the one boy. Passed on the data to his bishop and he to Smyth's abbot. That was 43 years ago. One of the boys' father was there for the first interview and he named the other abused, As cardinal now, he admitted that the procdure of those decades and the culture was deferential to authority (his bishop; he met all the kids so presumably all the parents would have known about the abuse. HE went to Rome and discovered later that the Abbot did not stop Smyth's abuse. To apply 2012 standards 20-20 to 1973 is ludicrous. IF his clergy snubbed him they have neither faith nor loyalty nor integrity. Why is there still no law in the ROI about child abuse after over a decade of the clergy story and why are the social workers still not following through with reported domestic and other abuse AND are still making excuses about the proposed law because it would overtax them. That was not an excuse in the past. The cardinal was a leader in enforcing the Church's own laws for reporting abuse. Away ahead of the Government who two top ministers asked him to get out. That is what gutless hypocrites do, same for former IRA man McGuinness who was converted and ran for president of Ireland and did well. More hypocricy on his part to judge the cardinal for 1973, what was be doing those years with TD Gerry Adams.

• Murph46 | May 19, 2012, 01:04 PM EDT

  Sophium-"the discontent of some" apparently you don't know of anyone who was raped by by the priests.You sanctimonious excuse for a human.

• Murph46 | May 19, 2012, 12:27 PM EDT

  Quite the "Brady Bunch"!

• Bernadett | May 19, 2012, 11:57 AM EDT

  I am at a loss how people can be so blind where the church is concerned. Most people have no problem with the religion its the money grabbing ,self centered idiots that are running the church we have the problems with.

• Bernadett | May 19, 2012, 11:41 AM EDT

  All jumping ship now ,why did they not stand up to him years ago it might have saved lives and hurt for a lot of people. Brady you are coward get out.

• ellenfromcork | May 19, 2012, 11:19 AM EDT

  @ Sophium--Where is the "mother" in Mother Church? No decent mother would treat her children the way the abuse victims have been treated by the hierarchy of the church. We have to continue to show our disgust w/ this treatment. I can hardly imagine Jesus condoning their actions.

• Sophium | May 19, 2012, 10:56 AM EDT

  Those of us who stand with Cardinal Brady will not be moved by dissent. Please recall that Jesus was abandoned. In John 6:66 we have this: "As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore." In the breaking of the bread, Judas abandoned Jesus at the Last Supper. When Jesus was taken away for imprisonment, trial, and crucifixion, all of his disciples abandoned Him. Many of us are standing firm with His Eminence and are praying for him. Mother Church is much bigger than the discontent of some.

• SeamusMor | May 19, 2012, 10:55 AM EDT

  Cardinal Brady has faithfully served the Lord every day of his life. He is blameless for the actions of others. His Eminence is exactly where he belongs; as the Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, where, God willing, he will remain until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75. Popes make Cardinals, not priests, polls, or politicians.

• irishcan73 | May 19, 2012, 08:33 AM EDT

  this man belongs in jail