PEOPLE WANT the truth to come out about clerical child sex abuse in Ireland and it may be necessary to extend the remit of the Murphy commission to ensure this is done, the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said last night.
He also said he would not be calling for the resignation of Cardinal Seán Brady as resignation was a personal decision.
Archbishop Martin was commenting on the crisis in the Catholic Church in Ireland following weekend revelations that its primate, Cardinal Brady, had conducted canonical inquiries into allegations of child sex abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth 35 years ago, involving two young people, without reporting the allegations to civil authorities.
“What is very important in all of this is that the truth comes out. I am worried about this because you are talking now about information that is in various places, in dioceses and religious orders. People want the entire truth to come out,” he said.
“I believe there’ll be no healing until we fully address the past,” he said. “I do not believe that extending the Murphy commission to every diocese in Ireland would be the best way to use money for child protection. But it may be the only way.
“Something like this may be necessary if we cannot get a way of ensuring the truth is out and people know that the truth is out.”
On whether Cardinal Brady should resign, he said: “I’ve always said it is not my job to tell people to resign or tell people to stay. I’ve never done that. People should be accountable, render an account of what they have done. Resignations are a personal matter.”
The archbishop would not comment on the weekend revelations as he did not know the full details, but he did say, “they were never discussed” by the cardinal with him before the weekend.
He has been in touch with Cardinal Brady since the weekend to express solidarity, but they had not talked about what had emerged as, “I wouldn’t on the telephone go into details about matters.”
Archbishop Martin was speaking last night prior to an ecumenical service at Dublin’s City Quay parish.
In a statement yesterday, the Catholic Communications Office issued further details of the 1975 investigation into Fr Smyth, saying “on 29 March 1975, Fr Brady and two other priests interviewed a boy (14) in Dundalk. Fr Brady’s role was to take notes. On 4 April 1975, Fr Brady interviewed a second boy (15) in the Parochial House in Ballyjamesduff. On this occasion, Fr Brady conducted the inquiry by himself and took notes”.
The Catholic Communications Office said the intention of the oath taken by the two young people at the end of the inquiry “was to avoid potential collusion in the gathering of the inquiry’s evidence and to ensure that the process was robust enough to withstand challenge by the perpetrator, Fr Brendan Smyth”.
On April 12th, 1975, Bishop McKiernan reported the findings to the Abbot of Kilnacrott.
“The specific responsibility for the supervision of Fr Smyth’s activities was, at all times, with his religious superiors. Bishop McKiernan withdrew Brendan Smyth’s priestly faculties and advised psychiatric intervention,” the statement said.
Until yesterday, it was understood the 1975 inquiries involved a boy and a girl and that it was the latter who has undertaken the High Court proceedings which led to the weekend revelations.
Attempts to clarify this with the Catholic Communications Office yesterday were unsuccessful. That office did not respond either to a series of questions e-mailed to it by The Irish Times. Included was a query as to whether it was two boys who were involved in the 1975 inquiries.
The office was also asked whether Cardinal Brady had followed Brendan Smyth’s movements after 1975, with possible further abuse of children in mind, and if not, why not.
Cardinal Brady did not attend a confirmation ceremony in Dundalk, Co Louth, yesterday as calls for his resignation continued.
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.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has rejected suggestions that he is at odds with his Cabinet colleague Green Party leader John Gormley over the handling of the clerical child sexual abuse crisis.
Speaking to journalists in Washington yesterday, Mr Cowen said: “It’s a matter for me to indicate my own views in relation to these situations. There is no discrepancy. The State’s position is that there is equality before the law.”
He was commenting after Mr Gormley said that he would have no difficulty with gardaí investigating the circumstances in which two children were asked to sign oaths of secrecy during the church inquiry into the Smyth case in 1975.