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PRESS CONFERENCE:CARDINAL SEÁN Brady and four of his fellow bishops yesterday strenuously defended the spiritual value and potentially healing quality of their two-day meeting in Rome with Pope Benedict XVI and senior members of the Curia.

Asked if he was worried that Irish public opinion might see the meeting as a disappointment, given that it failed to produce an invitation for the Irish victims of clerical abuse to meet with the pope, Cardinal Brady said: “I hope not, the question of the victims was a main concern right throughout the meeting. The meeting was held to help the Holy Father put the final touches to his letter which will address the victims . . . appropriately.”