THE VICTIM of paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth, who reached an out-of-court settlement with Catholic archdiocese of Armagh last week, has repeated his call for Cardinal Seán Brady to make a public apology to him.
Brendan Boland had sued the Norbertine Order, of which Smyth was a member, and Cardinal Brady as archbishop of Armagh, where the abuse occurred. The case against the Norbertine Order was disposed of in 2005.
In his first public interview since the settlement, Mr Boland (50) said on RTÉ's This Weekprogramme yesterday a private apology was not enough for him. He said a private apology would not be "appropriate" as the cardinal needed to admit publicly he was wrong.
He rejected suggestions from Cardinal Brady that giving an apology through the media would be counterproductive.
“I can’t see how it would be counterproductive for them because at least the public would see that they [the Catholic Church] are trying to change the way they dealt with things in the past.
“Just giving an apology to me is not showing that they are willing to accept their responsibilities.”
Cardinal Brady, then Fr Brady, made Mr Boland swear an oath of secrecy as a teenager in May 1975 not to tell anybody except designated priests about the abuse being carried out by Smyth.
Mr Boland went on to sue the Armagh diocese in 1997 when it emerged that Smyth had gone on to abuse other children, although the cardinal and other priests had promised that he would never be able to target children again.
Mr Boland criticised the church for continually stalling on dealing with his case. “I think they thought that I was going to go away and let it lie, that I would fade into the background and say nothing, but I didn’t,” he said.
He felt “really alone and scared” in 1975 when he walked into a room with Fr Brady, whom he did not know at the time, Fr Frank Donnolly and Fr Oliver McShane, in whom Mr Boland had originally confided.
He described the line of questioning as “disgusting”, saying they included questions such as “what happened to your body during this”? “Do you know the meaning of the word erection?” and “have you ever done this with other boys or other men”?
At the end he signed an oath to confirm the truth of what he had said and that he would only confide in designated priests in the future. The only other signature on the document was Fr Brady’s.
“They made assurances that they would take care of the problem and that Fr Smyth would never interfere with boys or girls again,” Mr Boland said. “It was many years before I found out that they reneged on that.” Mr Boland said the abuse had a profound impact on his life and he would not let his own children serve at the altar, join the scouts or go on school trips with teachers.
He said he only became aware that Smyth continued to abuse after his sister had viewed the UTV Suffer Little Childrendocumentary which was broadcast in 1994.
“I could not believe it, I was devastated. I was saying he should have been taken out of circulation in 1975,” he said. “I felt I should have gone to the guards instead.”
Mr Boland told the programme that his legal action took 14 years because the church insisted on “proof, proof and proof all the time”. It was only when the minutes of the meeting resurfaced in 2010 through discovery that he was able to proceed with his court action.
Responding to the interview, Cardinal Brady reiterated the point made while preaching at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, for St Patrick’s Day last year when he said he was “ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess”.
His offer of a private apology “still stands” and he expressed sorrow to those abused as children and their families and those who felt “let down by the Catholic Church’s failure of moral leadership and accountability”.
In response to a claim that three other alleged victims are suing the Armagh diocese, a statement from the Catholic Communications Office said it did not comment on “ongoing cases”.
