Was there a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?

So what should we do about Cardinal Sean Brady? It would, I think, be judicious to take a very close look at the details of the controversy that have engulfed the Catholic primate over the past fortnight before offering an opinion...

A programme in the This World series, broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland recently, and titled ‘The Shame of the Catholic Church’, contained hugely damning revelations concerning the role of Cardinal Sean Brady in relation to the abuse carried out by the notorious paedophile priest, Fr. Brendan Smyth.
Smyth, who abused over 100 children, had the distinction of bringing down the Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition government in 1994 as a result of what the Labour leadership saw as an attempted cover-up of his activities. 
But how deep did that cover-up run? To what extent was he facilitated in continuing his campaign of brutalisation of children by the authorities of the Church and the State? And in relation to that, who was culpable? Well, like peace, the truth comes dropping slow, but it has finally begun to emerge.
The BBC programme told the story of Brendan Boland, a boy from Co. Louth, who had himself been abused by the Norbertine priest. At the age of just 14 years, Brendan took the enormously courageous decision to make an official complaint against Smyth. In the course of pursuing this complaint, he named four other children, younger than him, who were also being abused by the priest, including a boy who lived in Belfast.
There was a desperately poignant moment in the programme when Brendan said to one of the other children, ‘I thought I’d saved you’. He had a right to make that assumption. Because, as a young teenager, Brendan Boland sat before a committee of three priests, including Sean Brady, who was also secretary to the Bishop of Kilmore, Francis McKiernan, at the time. He explained to them what the dysfunctionally predatory Smyth had been up to, and named the other children that were being abused. He had a right to believe that these representatives of God on earth would act on the information provided.
So did they?
Well, up to a point. Fr. Sean Daly arranged to speak to one of the other victims, who was based in Cavan. He listened to the evidence and received confirmation that Smyth had also been molesting this second child.
What did this future scion of the Roman Catholic Church do? Did he make the parents of the children aware of the fact that their children were being preyed on and abused by a patently sick clerical ogre? Did he do anything to help the children or to alleviate their suffering? On the contrary. His only interest was in carrying through the requirements of Canon Law to the letter.
The conversation with the Cavan victim was purely to establish if a sufficiently strong case could be made to remove his priestly functions from Fr. Brendan Smyth. Brady gave the report to the Bishop and this was done, but astonishingly, some time later these powers – to say mass, hear confession and so on – were restored to the Norbertine priest on the basis that stripping him of them had done no good.
The question remains: why did Sean Brady do nothing to help the children who were victims?
The Cardinal and the church authorities have insisted that Cardinal Brady was a mere note-taker at the original meeting with Brendan Boland and that he had no power to do anything beyond that. They also say that it would be wrong to judge the Cardinal’s actions back in 1975 by the standards of today, pointing out that there were no guidelines on the sexual abuse of minors in place at the time.
There are two points to be made about this. The first is that a previous statement was issued by the Catholic Press Office which clearly said that Sean Brady had conducted the investigation. This construction is surely supported by the fact that the follow-up with the second victim was carried out by Brady alone.
The second is that, in any event, it is no excuse that there were other more senior figures in the Church to defer to and that Sean Brady’s work was done when he handed the report to the Bishop. A 14-year-old boy knew in 1975 what was the right thing to do. He knew that the abuse had to be reported in order to stop it. He was taken in good faith by his father to the relevant authorities in the Church. He named other victims to these powerful men.
If a 14-year-old boy knew what to do, how can we possibly believe that a highly-educated priest in his mid-30s knew any less well? Children were being raped and abused. How hard is it to know that your first and only thought should be: these children must be protected?
By his failure to act, Cardinal Sean Brady facilitated the years of abuse that were visited on the Belfast victim. Criminally, Smyth went on to further abuse not just him but also his sister. And their four cousins.
All of this torture, pain and suffering might have been avoided if Sean Brady had done the obvious thing. He should, of course, have gone to the police. But leave that aside for a minute. All he really had to do was speak to the parents. If he had done that simple thing, then untold misery would have been averted for those children at least.
It is quite clear that the then Fr. Sean Brady put the interests of the Church ahead of the interests of the innocent victims of Brendan Smyth’s bullying and intimidation.
That is not in itself a crime or at least it wasn’t explicitly so at the time. But there is another dimension to this that needs to be examined carefully. When Brendan Boland was brought before the committee of three on which Sean Brady sat, his evidence is that he was required to confirm that he would not discuss the issues that were being covered in the inquiry concerning abuse by Brendan Smyth with anyone else. Agreement to this was demanded of a fourteen year old boy by men who purport to be representatives of Jesus Christ on earth. In effect, you could take the view that they intimidated a potential witness, in a case of multiple sexual abuse, into silence.
There is little doubt that this represents a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. It is tampering with a witness. It is, in the style of the mafia, imposing a code of omerta on an innocent child – himself a victim of abuse.
There is, therefore, a very strong basis for a criminal investigation by the Gardaí into that conspiracy. The Cardinal and his representatives can attempt to rationalise what happened in any way they want but to take a young, vulnerable witness to a series of crimes into a room, without his father (who was left sitting outside) and without any legal advice or representation and to extract from him, using the power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church a vow of silence is not just deeply morally wrong – it is, I suspect, against the law.
Two weeks since the BBC programme was broadcast, the Cardinal remains in his position as the de facto head of the church in Ireland. That is a decision for the Pope to make and he is entitled to do what he considers to be best for the institution. I have no argument with that, nor should anyone representing the State.
But what I do believe is that the State and its representatives have a job to do as well. If there is evidence of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice then it must be investigated – even if it does mean that the Cardinal may end up facing charges.