Vatican to axe Cardinal Sean Brady as Primate of All Ireland

Jaceragain. I sincerely hope you are not being sensored.

Somebody in Irish Central is taking the pitt.. I've made 8 attempts to post a response to seamus60. What gives, you guys and gals in ICentral??? I've not written a a single word that would be called "censorable".

seamus60, you make a fair point. I too wish Irish Bishops and our incumbent Cardinal Primate and his Predecessor, Cardinal Daly, had reacted more quickly to realities. The truth is that Irish Bishops didn’t know how to handle such cases, no more than the Govts of Ireland during that time. The Church actually realised it didn’t know how to cope with modern journalists and founded the Catholic Communications Office in response (now under the Catholic Bishops website; it’s a good read). The reality is that the Irish State, and I may add, the NI Govt of those years and even the UK’s Govt and the Australian and the Canadian and the American Govts of those years also failed to act. (More??? I've attempted to post my full comments but this site is blocking them; anti-anti-Cathloisms at work?)

Jacer. With respect the facts are speaking for their self. Had the headline been correct, it would have at least been a step in the right direction. Forget about church inquiries and reccommendations, mere window dressing and face saving exercises as proven with Brady.The church just got too complaciant in believing their flock would be easily fobbed off. How much longer till they get the message that they must practice what they preach.

Missed one point - why were so many victims male?.........Primarily because there were no altar girls until recently. MOlesters are molesters and the sex of the victim is meaningless to them

How many decades to late? ............BTW ask any legit psychologist and they will tell you that if you deny the reality of sex, make it dirty or forbidden, some people go bad. And they pick up victims at the age where sex was denied and defiled etc............Celibacy is the root cause, and in the idea of unintended consequences, back in about 1000AD the church ended priests marrying - so the church would inherit their estates.............But the vilest crime is that the church protected its pocketbook instead of protecting children , some of whom commmitted suicide, otehrs who bear the scars for a lifetime.........According to SNAP, about 100,000 kids were abused in the USA alone. Others say much more...........The church btw spent 1.8 million on a report re the problem with a part of CCNY......the final part of it says that as more gays entered the priesthood, there was a big drop in problems (1970s and 80s)........OF course the priests were having their sex with each other, at least consensual. The str8 priests had no outlet - the nuns ere protected and they couldnt afford prostitutes. Shame on the church for defaming its gay priests, and horrors for how the hierarchy hid these vile crimes for decades, but probably for many centuries.

eiriamach – sorry but nope, I don’t agree w/ your 9% figure. Countless scientific and social studies show that 2% of overall populations everywhere are child abusers; that %-age would also apply to clerics and members of any church, with few exceptions, where it might reach 5% but hardly ever any higher. Otherwise, I agree with you in that reforms are needed in how the problems of dealing with the ‘bad’ 2% are dealt with. You might like to take time out to learn and write on ICentral of what reforms have been taken and are taking place and quote ‘ad nauseam’ from the authors of these reforms, as you are won’t to do of those who attack the Church. Please show some respect and get some balance into your comments.

@ seamus60 – excuse me, I don’t have blind loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church at all. I completely acknowledge it as a channel of the Holy Eucharist and for it being under guidance of the Holy Spirit in matters of faith and morals, despite the human faults of its many leaders and lay members misinterpreting their roles, including myself. >>> Dr. Brady wasn’t running for “cover”, as you put it, he was quite rightly having nothing to do with errant, misleading, lying Media Man choosing to describe such a fob-off moment as an “escape”. Get facts right please, we all well know Media Man is planting incorrect info in our heads according to their own agenda. I personally would like to know who, in Irish journalism schools, is planting such farcical ideas in the minds of our young trainee journalists. I’d give him/her a right good run for his imbecilic teachings. No more supposing and planting wrong information, even downright lies before us please – let the facts speak for themselves.

Jetsnoon. You`re spot on. The church has not came out, when it should have, in defence of all those poor children sodomised. No need either to bring other churchs into it , that should only be used as a comparison and never a defence. The same can be said on the issue of percentages as they`re irrelevant when the church doesn`t acknowledge any.

Jacers, recent studies in the USA have shown the percentage of sex-abuser priests to be closer to 9 percent of all priests, with countless victims, the majority of whom never report the abuse. The prognosis for change? Zip! Because, as you can see in many comments on ICentral, church defenders call for unquestioning obedience to the teachings of mere human beings in the hierarchy. And the type of man who is mindlessly obedient to authority figures is an adolescent in mind and emotions, not a sexually mature individual who will take responsibility for his own actions. See A.W. Richard Sipe's statement of Sept. 13, 2012: "The problem is so ancient. It is so well documented. Repeatedly the church has put out statements and implemented punishments for clergy child abuse -- even death in certain instances. (Cf. Sex, Priests & Secret Codes, 2006). St. Basil at the council of Ancyra in 415 acknowledged there was a problem and imposed a remedy. Peter Damian referred to the same formula in 1050." Whatever happens to Card. Brady, no Catholic should expect change in this tragic problem until real reforms take hold.

Jacersagain. "quite rightly rebuffing leading questions vociferously, with dogged Media Man sent off with his tail wagging behind him", That wasn`t the case the night the programme investigating approached him and he ran inside a building for cover. Jacer you should not allow your blind loyalty to our discredited Cardinal and church leadership stop you from seeing.Its on par with all those SF supporters either unable or just unwilling to accept facts for what they are.Pride can be a terrable and cruel thing at times.

Cardinal Seán Brady is Primate of All Ireland of the ecclesia styling itself the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, as distinct from his Church of Ireland (Anglican Communion) Primate of All Ireland, both based in Armagh city. Other protestant churches in Ireland (Presbyterian/Methodist/Adventist/Quakers etc) don't do cardinals). Since Saint Patrick's remains are reputedly buried in the Church of Ireland grave yard in Downpatrick, does that mean that he was not just originally a Brit from Wales captured by Celtic Irish slave traders, but a Prod as well? Whatever about Downpatrick - I say up with Valentinus! Hmmm!

What in blazes took so long for Brady to be removed? It should have happened years ago.

Seamus60....the Church has never, ever come out for abortion or sodomy, unlike your Protestant sects some of which ACTUALLY DO try to tell their people that abortion and homosex. is o.k.....the Catholic Church has been infiltrated by some homos but the Church can never condone such evil in their policy/dogma...... it's like the Penn State thing: Joe Paterno was no homo, and didn't approve of such actions, but as a weakness he tried to wish it away.... wishing away evil is like an anti-Catholic like you wishing the Church would fold up and go away....ain't ever going to happen, Jesus said so.....

jacer may be half right!! Brady has had a little nudge to retire gracefully rather than be pushed over the cliff.

glengesh – read my last post please. Get it RIGHT before you post. Sexual abuse was NOT EVER committed by the Roman Catholic Church per se ANYWHERE. It was committed by a very, very few MEMBERS of the Church, somewhere between 2 and 4% of ALL billion-plus members. HOW DARE YOU tar the whole church with your lies and suppositions! Have you attacked the 2% members of your own local community’s neighbourhood with the same venom? No? Please do, and please name and shame them.

When Sir Anthony Hart hands over his report on the investigation into child sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Church in Northern Ireland it will send that organisation reeling out of Ireland for good. Make no misstake about it, the sheer depravity of that church will leave the population in dismay and horror. Brady has been revealed but behind him in hideing are many more who have every reason to sleep uneasy in their beds. This includes not only cardinals and bishops and priests but nuns and lay catholics. Meanwhile Brady should be before the courts.

Get facts right before you print a word of a lie. The Vatican is most definitely NOT going to axe Dr. Brady. Dr. Brady is due to retire in 2014.His retirement and new replacement is normal procedure for the Vatican’s re-organisation after his retirement. Most media people have no sense of proper accurate reporting and frequently juxtapose their own choice words against the facts which are usually limited to a one-line paragraph while the rest of their reports concentrate on changing the agenda of the facts. Facts: 1. Like any organisation, Vatican preparations are made to appoint a replacement of any retiring Bishop or Cardinal well in advance. 2. That process has been underway since 2010, instigated by Cardinal Brady himself as is his duty as Cardinal Primate of All-Ireland. 3. Dr. Brady absolutely refused to be bullied by one Media interviewer after another into admitting to something he didn’t do wrongly, quite rightly rebuffing leading questions vociferously, with dogged Media Man sent off with his tail wagging behind him, which Media Man didn’t like. Then Media Man began his own agenda of attacks, presented to us as facts of his own believing, all on false grounds. Get it right pls.

cardinal sean brady tried his best to act like an ostrich over the child sex abuse scandal of the roman catholic church , he knows it hasnt even begun in the six counties which he had the power to sort out with the victims and he refused point blank.he was continually exposed as an arch pedophile cover up lawyer, hence we have the stormont inquiry which will last four years. brady was only one of the countless number exposed covering it all up , the childrens homes and correction centres run by them will be exposed for the depravity they carried out on children, as advertised in all our local papers inviting anyone this century who was abused in anyway to come anf give the details to the n,ire inquiry, these men are members of a religious kabal that has nothing to do with the biblical god. go brady go.

Jetsnoon. Would that be the same conservative church that covered up sodomy against non consenting inocent children and the theft of new borns from mothers who obviously dissagreed with abortion.

Commentator. Who would give the same test to who ever was to carry out the one on Bradys successor. They would have us believe the buck stopped at Brady. Rotten to the core and thats a long way off Brady.

HermitTalker. The boys father wasn`t sworn to secrecy hardly exempts Brady for not acting. Anyway there has to be hundreds of people if not thousands, who either had first hand knowledge or were victims who would not have dared expose such vile incidents. The church had such a strong hold on its flock. How many children will have got a good chastizing from their parents for even implying their abuse from a man of the cloth, with all his integrity, honesty and committment to the welfare of all his flock. How many more poor parents on believing their child, have had to live with the pain they didn`t have the courage to take the church on, for fear of reprisal from their own community etc. Look what happened in West Belfast, Liam Adams was allowed to continue working with children because of who he was and the fear his victim lived under had she exposed her suffering much earlier.

Patrick, you should have more sense than to blindly lift stories from other sources, especially when these sources are spinning the facts. Cardinals are eligible to retire at 75 and a coadjutor bishop is normally appointed 18 months prior to a cardinals retirement. This is the case with Brady. The line taken by Garry O'Sullivan in the Irish Independent that the Vatican is set to make Cardinal Sean Brady pay the price of the recent scandals surrounding him is simply not true. Lifting a story is one thing, lifting an opinion is another.

Carroll09. The article is irrelevant. As for decency, had the Brady had any he woulkd have resigned in 2010.

I hope the Vatican has the decency to subject the replacement to lie detector tests and not rely on their own records and judgement to make the decision. Oh wait a minute, why don't they get up to speed and the times appoint a nun. I wonder where Brady will go? Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan would be a great choice.

At least the Irish Independent, unlike IC, had the decency to acknowledge that Cardinal Brady himself had asked the Vatican to appoint either an auxiliary or a coadjutor bishop back in 2010. The Cardinal himself explained earlier this year that his request was put on hold pending the outcome of the Apostolic Visitation...But we wouldn't want to let such minor details get in the way of a sensationalist article.

Need a real strong conservative now....conservative Catholic Church is growing strongly in the USA.Yes, you'll lose many liberals but even Jesus has no use for them and their abortion and sodomy.

The Catholic Church is such an archaic institution with the weirdest of sex-related perversions as part of its practices & policies (whether official or not), it should just be wound up before it self-destructs. The "scandals" referred to are already decades old, but the cases happening TODAY should be dealt with today, not in 20-40-odd years time!

Did I read this wrong. Oh well, I was celebrating the Irish VICTORY over Stanford. 6-0 and no touchdowns scored against the Irish Defense in the last four games. As for Brady, the vatican will have to deal with him in prison where he belongs.

Who cares. The Vatican is irrelevant. They way they treat Catholics is sick. The mistreatement of Catholic youths by so-called priests and bishops. I hope they burn in HELL. Then all the disrespect they have piled on our Sisters! Who care about the vatican?

Am always amazed that Paisley has not been trumpeting over the years about child abuse in institutions ! Could it be possible that his " Church " has something to hide ?

AS A VICTIM IN THE SIX COUNTIES I CAN CONFIRM THAT NO-ONE IN CHILDRENS HOMES, DIDNT ABUSE CHILDREN , AND ALL AUTHORITY KNEW ABOUT , AS THE RECORD WILL SHOW EVEN HUNDREDS OF POLICE, WHO TOOK THOUSANDS OF STATEMENTS OVER THE PAST FORTY YEARS , JUST AS CARDINAL SEAN BRADY , THESE ARE THE CASES HE WAS CAUGHT LYING IN , GOOD RIDDENS TO BAD RUBBISH , BUT THE STORMONT IS SOLEY RESPONIBLE FOR IT ALL NOW.

Too little too late. Brady should be in prison along with all the others who allowed the abuse to continue.Forget about how long ago or what age and position he held as an excuse. He was a priest and should have had the morals and human decency to do all within his power to protect children. All that he has done, since then to now is nothing more than a sham.Just another liar, busy telling people to practice what he preached whilst sheltering peadophiles.

Should I apply?

Now we see why the Vatican must desist from allowing the Butcher, the Brewer, and the Milkman, from making Musical Chairs of the Roman Catholic Faith !

Another one bites the dust,GOOD.

Brady will be called to Rome, just like Cardinal Law.

Canon law has the same status as the rules of a knitting circle. Every citizen has the authority to contact the police, and that includes Brady. He needed nobody's permission to report a crime, but he failed to do so. This man saw nothing wrong with asking a sexually-abused boy if the abuse had given him an erection, before swearing that child to secrecy. Brady knew exactly what sort of serial rapist Brendan Smyth was and did nothing about it, with the result that Smyth continued to rape children for another 20 years.

Concur that it has become much more customary to name a coadjutor arch/bishop for larger dioceses worldwide. I still wonder how the Government, that cannot solve the septic tank mess in Ireland, butted into the call to demand Cdl Brady resign. 1 He was on a Canon Law mission that took him to North and South. 2 Did his job. 3 Reported it to his bishop who reported to the sick priest's abbot. 4 Fr Brady went to Rome- discovered later the sick priest was not removed. 5 That abbot resigned, that bishop is dead. #### now 43 years later cardinal Brady is presumed to have authority to have contacted the police ( ROI and NI) The boy was bound to silence re the canonical case, normal procedure. His father and the other boys' parents were not sworn or bound to secrecy in the civil realm. It helps to have read the facts and understand, especially when the highest Government officials have no clue about canon law as was clear when Mr Kenny ably demonstrated that in his ludicrous, and inaccurate attack on the pope in the protected Dail last July. Shall not mention his playing with his toy ipod recently right in front of the same "arrogant" - his word last July- Pope.

The axe, or a promotion to a plush job in Rome?

Never mind what the Vatican does. Brady should be in jail.

Cardinal Brady has served the Lord, the Church, and his flock with passion, integrity, fidelity, and love every day of his life as a priest. It is shameful to attempt to make him the scapegoat for the sinful and criminal behavior of others. It is wrong to judge him by today's standards for the decisions and policies taken and in effect decades ago. It is routine to appoint a successor to an Archbishop during the final years before his mandatory retirement in order to insure an orderly transition within a diocese.

Since recently there was a visit and investigation with Cardinals Dolan and O'Malley, maybe we can dump O'Malley on the Irish people. That way, he won't be able to "sell out the Irish people" as he does in Boston since the entire country is Irish.

Since every Catholic Primate of the Irish nation is beyond the jurisdiction of the Southern authorities, that fact ought to be one reason why the Dáil crowd should be less supportive of Prtition.

FINALY, a sensible choice of action.