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Martin McGuinness calls on Cardinal Brady to step down


Published Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 7:43 AM
Updated Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 8:11 AM

 

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In a stunning development Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has effectively called for Cardinal Sean Brady to step aside because of his role in an alleged cover-up of child abuse.

Speaking in Washington where he will meet President Obama at the White House on St. Patrick's Day, Martin McGuinness described the Cardinal’s situation as “grave”.

He said: “I think many Catholics will be dismayed at the news that they are hearing now almost on a daily basis.

“It is a very grave situation which is before the Catholic Church and Catholic people in the North. I do think Cardinal Brady needs to consider his position.”

McGuinness is the highest ranking politician in public office in Northern Ireland where Brady serves.

Brady has now admitted that he helped silence two young abuse victims of the notorious serial abuser Father Brendan Smyth in 1975.

The Catholic Church yesterday attempted to defuse the controversy by releasing details about why Cardinal Brady asked the two child abuse victims to sign secrecy agreements.

The church said two boys were asked to sign oaths “to avoid potential collusion” in evidence gathering and to ensure that the complaints could “withstand challenge”.

The statement also pointed to Cardinal Brady’s junior position at the time of the inquiry, stating that he had “no decision making powers”.

But the Church statement failed to explain why Brady did not go to the police with the evidence that the two boys had been abused

 Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin who had four bishops fired who admitted cover ups in the diocese decline to call for Brady's resignation but stated a nationwide investigation parish by parish could be the only way to end the scandal.

He said: “It may be necessary if we cannot get a way of ensuring that the truth is out and people know that the truth is out,” he said.

“Brendan Smyth should have been stopped from the very first time he abused a child,” he said.

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Posted by murphy666 on Mar 18, 2010, 11:05 AM EDT
Cave a prelato sicut a peccato. (Flee from a bishop as you would from sin.)
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Posted by kickstar on Mar 18, 2010, 10:06 AM EDT
Realist' I Agree with you and there is nothing you say that is a problem to me as a matter of fact we used to have a United Ireland and it wasn't us that left, It is a very sad thing that this enmity has been allowed to exist between our people and all it really needed was a little knowledge as to the purpose of the politicians who played us like pawns and all the while they enriched themselves reared their snooty nosed well educated wealthy privileged and coddled children, While we were left in the smoke, We only learned hatred of each other when as fellow Ulster men we should have been like neighbors, I have actually felt this for years anyway that I have more in common with you than you think. I believe God is at work at the moment shining a light on the dark places of our country and with his help this problem of ours may very well pass.
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Posted by Realist on Mar 18, 2010, 03:49 AM EDT
Kickstar, Unionists are often accused by Republicans/Nationalist of being reactionary. In this case it may be true. Sir James Craig made his speech describing, and I quote, "....a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people...." only after and in reaction to De Valera's provocative and menacing, “Catholic state for a Catholic people” declaration. Republicans, via legitimate self-determination, opted to leave the United Kingdom. Unionists, via equally legitimate self-determination, opted to remain. They feared being trapped in a culturally alien state dominated by a hostile and all-powerful Roman Catholic church. In all honesty, can you blame them? If these stories are any indicator of what they did to their co-religionists, what would have been the fate of 'heretic' Protestants? Sadly, De Valera caused mischief in Northern Ireland and economic disaster in the Free State (as it was then). A case of reaping what he sowed I'm afraid.
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Posted by kickstar on Mar 17, 2010, 11:46 PM EDT
'Oonaghx' God bless you I was a kid of the seventies too but thank god when I had a complaint like got a hiding from an oul nun as was as likely as not,My mother had sympathy on me, We were not a family who were going to spend a lot of time with each other as it happened with immigration and that but the time we were together was good. We were taught Irish by a nun and that is why I cannot speak a word of it today, not one of those jokers were qualified teachers, Yet our people paid through the nose for their salaries. Thank God it was when a Captain Long became the Education Minister those wasters were swept out. He was a Unionist but he was a terribly decent man who had the children of the state best interests at heart i think, I wish I could say that about a single other politician in Northern Ireland at the time. But that was then and and so on, This church needs to be broken into a million pieces, A person needs no church or pagan habits to have a relationship with God...Remember he is everywhere.
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Posted by kickstar on Mar 17, 2010, 11:26 PM EDT
'Realist' I am a Northerner who was raised a catholic and I agree with you on the dev issue. But how do you think my family reacted when the first prime minister of Northern Ireland declared "A protestant State for a Protestant People" And my father spent the next 47 years working away in England, And when we were half educated we had to run out of the country as well, But there is at least hope I can see your point of view and my children were born and reared in Canada.
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Posted by kickstar on Mar 17, 2010, 11:17 PM EDT
I find it incredible that there are people who think a public representative of thousands of people including by extension Children, Should not involve himself in the business of church when the very people he represents are those who are in greatest Danger And run the greatest risk of serious sexual assault from these demon clergymen. Please this would not be acceptable anywhere not even in Canada.
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Posted by KathyCallahan on Mar 17, 2010, 07:10 PM EDT
Sean -the silencer -Brady will not go nor will he be taken out or put away
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Posted by KathyCallahan on Mar 17, 2010, 07:09 PM EDT
Sean 'the silencer' Brady see above.
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Posted by KathyCallahan on Mar 17, 2010, 06:20 PM EDT
and i'm talking about the ice berg of all ice bergs...Please on behalf of all of us who love and cherish our faith, history and culture, very identity...Take hold of the wheel of this broken ship, reset the course and steer us clear away from the inevitable hierarchical destruction on the horizon. The writing is in green, orange and white up on the wall. There is so much good very good In the pews, parish halls, traditional religious family gatherings and cultural celebrations. These pig headed entrench able men are (and will continue to be) our greatest shame and the lynch pin of our slow but very steady demise and undoing. The Irish Catholic church has been and still is potentially organizing. I am looking right straight in the eyes of the enemy everyday on Irish Central.com thanks to Niall O'Dowd, again. Our enemies define who we are and are not.. And I'm not talking about the british government. I hope my prayerful call to action and warning resonates w/U on Saint Patrick's Day. The people in the pews have got the power from Southie Boston to Spring Lake, South Bend and all the way to Gal;way. In the pews and halls that's where it's at. When all is said and done. The end. This is really not about Brady, Bernhard Law, Ratzinger, his brother and minions over and over again and again. Kathy Ann Callahan writing from Sag HaRbor N;Y; KathCalla@aol.com
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Posted by KathyCallahan on Mar 17, 2010, 01:14 PM EDT
Vision and Fearless Leadership. Thank you Martin McGuinness and please please please stay on Brady's case. We are at the cross in the road literally and figuratively. If we don't make transformational choices -the church will not recover -the hierarchy will prevail and the pews will continue to empty out. Brady et al are charting a course to hit the ice berg.
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Posted by McNamara31 on Mar 17, 2010, 01:01 PM EDT
And what about the Vatican, who oversaw these abuse cases worldwide, choosing the advice of lawyers rather than ethics and morals for 25 years? Accountability in all fairness, should begin at the top.
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Posted by Oonaghx on Mar 17, 2010, 11:56 AM EDT
CanadianPat, I respect your opinion on Church & State issues. However, what does it matter what person or group speaks out against adults that take advantage of young children as long as somebody does. I was a 70's kid growing up in Ireland, I know first hand how my Mother related to the church, which was "it was forbidden to question or speak badly of anything involving church matters, Priests, Nuns etc." So I feel angry towards parents who also had blame in the abuse, we hear so much against the priests, what about the Nuns and what about the parents who were so occupied worshiping the clergy over the heads of these small children, that they failed or chose to ignore the suffering of their own children.
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Posted by Watchman on Mar 17, 2010, 11:24 AM EDT
Martin McGuinness is real. Unlike Gerry Adams, he doesn't pretend that he wasn't involved in the "recent unpleasantness". He's also a pragamatist and, I believe, deep down, a good man. The Catholic Church is in a mess. It needs new leaders. McGuinness has done us all a favour.
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Posted by CanadianPat on Mar 17, 2010, 10:48 AM EDT
As a life long Republican , devote Catholic ,and staunch supporter of Sinn Fein I have always believed that the Church should stick out of politics and Politicians should stick out of Church Business! I do not disagree with McGuinness ,only that now in his position he should not have come out in public with his personal openion on the matter.
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Posted by Realist on Mar 17, 2010, 09:47 AM EDT
And people wonder why the Unionists of Northern Ireland resisted and continue to resist a "united Ireland". Sadly this is what you get when, like Eamonn De Valera, you create, and I quote, “a Catholic state for a Catholic people”. So keen was he to secure a theocratic regime that he even sent the draft 1937 Irish constitution to the Vatican for approval. Now we see Pontious Pilate trying to wash his hands.
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Posted by kickstar on Mar 17, 2010, 08:44 AM EDT
Well said Martin.
 


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