Oath of secrecy was a form of abuse - survivor

SURVIVORS' GROUPS:THE OATH of secrecy taken by children when they took part in a church investigation into sexual abuse was in itself a form of abuse, survivor Marie Collins has said.

Speaking following revelations that Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady was involved in a canonical investigation into abuse carried out by the late Fr Brendan Smyth, Ms Collins said people should be told how many children were forced to take the oath.

Cardinal Brady interviewed two children, aged 10 and 14, about allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Smyth in 1975. Both children were required to take an oath of secrecy about the investigation under canonical law.

The cardinal passed on the information he gathered to his bishop Dr Francis McKiernan, but not to gardaí.

Ms Collins said the cardinal was trained in the church as a canon lawyer and saw the whole world through the eyes of a church lawyer. “He lost contact with the ordinary people, but he was a 36-year-old intelligent man in 1975; he should have known better.”

She said in the second interview Cardinal Brady carried out with the children, he was on his own and he knew exactly what had been done to them.

“The oath was a form of abuse in itself. The only person it protected was Fr Brendan Smyth.”

She said those within the church saw only one law they needed to follow. “In 1975, if someone told me they were being abused, I would have reported it to gardaí; 1975 is not that long ago.”

Children came very low down on the list of the church’s priorities, while secrecy and protecting the church from scandal was the top priority, she said.

She told The Irish TimesCardinal Brady should resign and a full State investigation should be set up to look at allegations of sexual abuse in every diocese in the country.

“We have no idea how many children took an oath of secrecy, we should know.

“We can’t trust what the bishops tell us, there has to be a proper State inquiry,” she said.

She also said the church had gone past the point of giving reassurances.

“They give reassurances and more reassurances and then there is a drip, drip of more revelations. The church is destroying itself by not coming out and telling us everything.”

Ms Collins also said though it was not yet clear if Pope Benedict was in any way connected to the mishandling of a paedophile case in Munich when he was a bishop there in the 1980s, if he was involved it “may explain why he hasn’t accepted the resignations of bishops in some cases”.