Smoke and Mirrors II (Main Forum)

by James, Australia, Thursday, May 03, 2012, 07:33 (384 days ago) @ desi
edited by James, Thursday, May 03, 2012, 08:04

It found Cardinal Sean Brady had names and addresses of those being abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

However, he did not pass on those details to police or parents....

"With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

The cardinal said he was "shocked, appalled and outraged" by Smyth and said he had trusted that those with the authority to act in relation to Smyth would treat the evidence seriously and respond appropriately.

This is where, I am sorry to say, the statement of Cardinal Brady is simply dishonest. He knows why he could not tell the police or the parents: he couldn't, unless he was prepared to be automatically excommunicated, which, according to his beliefs, meant that he was excluded from the Church and the sacraments, and if he died in that state (according to the pre-Vatican II doctrine) would go straight to Hell.

Crimen Sollicitationis, paragraph 11, was very clear. He could not tell anyone what he had been told by complainants and witnesses, other than, of course, his "Ordinary", the bishop to whom he was reportng.

But neither could his bishop, who, no doubt, is decomposing in peace in some episcopal grave. His bishop was obliged by Canon Law not to tell the police OR the child's parents as well.

Now Brady knows that, but the line that the Church has spun is to blame the bishops for doing nothing, because if they were honest and told the truth, the finger points right back at Josef Ratzinger, aka His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, the man in charge of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for 25 years, the administrator of the "secret of the Holy Office", and the one who put his name to continuing that secrecy in 2001 with the Motu Proprio. But not just Josef Ratzinger, but to the whole Roman Curia of Cardinals, and his predecesdsor Blessed John Paul II, who insisted on the policy of cover up and kept it going in 2001.