CONFIRMATION:THE CATHOLIC primate Cardinal Seán Brady did not attend a confirmation ceremony in Dundalk, Co Louth, yesterday despite being listed as the chief celebrant for the occasion.
Bishop Gerard Clifford, auxiliary Bishop of Armagh, who carried out the confirmation, said Cardinal Brady was “under pressure” at the moment so he offered instead to officiate at the ceremony at the Church of the Holy Family in Muirhevnamore in Dundalk.
“I happened to be in Armagh [on Monday night] and I mentioned to him that I would do the confirmation . . . being under pressure as he is at the moment, I suggested to him that I would do the confirmations,” said Bishop Clifford.
Bishop Clifford said he supported Cardinal Brady and that he should not resign. “I think he shouldn’t resign. I think I would ask the question, ‘What would Seán Brady’s resignation do for child safeguarding?’ ” he said.
“I know Cardinal Brady extremely well. I have been working with him for the last 16, 17 years and his concern, his interest has always been, and no doubt, please God, will continue to be the protection and safeguarding of young people,” he added.
Bishop Clifford said that over these “critical days” young people and those who have been abused and survivors of abuse were “very much in our minds”.
“And all I would say is that Cardinal Brady, I know, has done more than most people for survivors of abuse,” he added. Bishop Clifford said that Cardinal Brady had worked proactively to bring the issue to the agenda of the Catholic bishops’ conference.
Meanwhile, the Bishop of Derry Dr Seamus Hegarty has apologised to five people who suffered child abuse at church-run institutions in his diocese. The bishop had previously caused controversy when he said some victims of clerical sex abuse involved in legal cases found “their experience in court much more traumatic for them than the original sexual abuse”.
Bishop Hegarty held a two-hour meeting with the group at St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry yesterday during which he issued his apology. The five included people who were abused in the care homes of the Sisters of Nazareth.
“I am truly sorry that anyone should suffer such abuse in any institution operating where the spirit of Jesus Christ should have prevailed,” said Bishop Hegarty.
“It was not difficult to say sorry when I heard the witness and the experience of these people. I could not say sorry or apologise enough for what they have come through.”
The delegation welcomed both the apology and the fact that Bishop Hegarty had listened carefully as they outlined what they had suffered.