(March 18, 2010) The leader of Ireland's Roman Catholics said on Wednesday that he
is ashamed of his part in dealing with a child sex abuse scandal 35 years ago. Cardinal
Sean Brady, Archbishop of Armagh has faced calls for his resignation following revelations
that he participated in interviewing two victims of the notorious pedophile priest
Brendan Smyth in 1975, but did not notify police. “I have listened to reaction from
people to my role in events 35 years ago. I want to say to anyone who has been hurt
by any failure on my part that I apologize to you with all my heart,” the prelate
said in a St. Patrick's Day sermon at Armagh cathedral in Northern Ireland. In Rome,
Pope Benedict XVI said he would soon send a pastoral letter to Ireland’s Catholic
Church and hoped it would promote “repentance, healing and renewal.” Meanwhile, Archbishop
Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said on Tuesday his Catholic colleagues in Ireland must
tell “the entire truth” about their decades of covering up child abuse in the priesthood.
He said church officials were responsible for the suffering of scores of Smyth's victims
from 1975 to 1994, when he was arrested and convicted on more than 100 counts of molesting
and raping boys and girls. Smyth, who abused children in the U.S. states of North
Dakota and Rhode Island as well as Ireland, died in an Irish military prison in 1997.