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Call for Cardinal in abuse cover-up to quit

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 15 March 2010

Pressure is mounting on the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland to resign over revelations he failed to report complaints against a paedophile priest to authorities.

Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady

Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady defended his role at a meeting where children abused by convicted sex offender Brendan Smyth - whose case eventually brought down an Irish government - were asked to take a vow of silence.

The Cardinal - then a part-time secretary to the then Bishop of Kilmore, the late Bishop Francis McKiernan - took notes during two meetings with children who he believed had been abused by Smyth.

The senior churchman said his actions in 1975 had been part of a process that removed the shamed cleric's licence to act as a priest. He maintained Smyth's Norbertine order was otherwise responsible for him.

"Frankly I don't believe that this is a resigning matter," said Cardinal Brady.

Smyth was at the centre of one of the first paedophile priest scandals to rock the Catholic Church in Ireland.

A seven-month delay in extraditing Smyth to Northern Ireland also collapsed Ireland's government in November 1994, when the Labour Party withdrew from its coalition with Fianna Fail over claims a warrant was withheld.

The prolific offender later admitted a litany of sex attacks on about 90 children in the north and south of Ireland over a 40-year period and was jailed. He died in prison in 1997.

Victims of sex abuse rounded on the Cardinal and demanded his resignation.

Colm O'Gorman, who founded support group One in Four, said Dr Brady rose through the ranks in the Catholic Church hierarchy while Smyth continued to rape and abuse children.

Meanwhile Andrew Madden, who in 1995 became the first in Ireland to go public with an abuse lawsuit against the church, said the abuse of children was widespread across the country.

"I believe every Diocese in the country will have allegations which were mishandled," said Mr Madden.

"It's only a case of when people are found out."

Last year a report into abuse allegations against Catholic priests in the Dublin archdiocese revealed how senior clerics had covered up the scandal and how police failed to take action.

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