A Headhunting We Will Go ...

Brendan Smyth is led from the Four Courts, Dublin after being convicted in 1997 of sexual offences against children.

A Headhunting We Will Go ...

Like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Brendan Smyth, paedophile and priest, was dragged up from the depths in a weekend that was all about taking heads. The BAI published its report on 'Mission to Prey' at the same time that another documentary placed an Irish cardinal in the crosshairs.

It was the perfect storm in terms of the media and the church and the danse macabre that is Brady's insistence that he does not have a case to answer in respect of the abuse of children by Smyth, taking cover behind procedure and the implicit belief that it this is all part of a media witch hunt that is only interested in seeing the head of an Irish cardinal roll. 

The media - RTE - had shot itself in the foot with poor standards and a rush to judgement. The only heads to roll were those in Donnybrook. Smyth, back from the dead, cast a long shadow but the the cardinal remains in place.

The nature of his defense, that he was only a notary following procedures, has a certain resonance but it  is all the more shocking in that it was enough save him - unlike the children that his action condemned to further abuse by Brendan Smyth.

Image; Helen McGonigle held a photo of herself as a child around the time she was abused by Brendan Smyth in East Greenwich, R.I. (Bill Greene/ Boston Globe Staff)

 And there's more.

Colm O'Gorman has said Cardinal Brady rose through the ranks in the 

Catholic Church while Smyth continued to rape and abuse children. On the other side of the line we learned that Tom Savage, Chairman of the BAI, had left the priesthood after becoming disillusioned in his role as chief apologist for the church. 

Like Brady he had encountered abuse when he was a priest  - an abusing priest reported by him to his bishop had been moved to a parish in England. He was not happy but did he report it to he Gardaí? 

It seems that the head of the Broadcasting Authority in Ireland and the head of the Catholic Church have come around a circle from opposite directions. Both have had to deal with 'A Mission To Prey' and both have to deal with the consequences of paedophile priests who had been given permission to prey on children, tacitly or otherwise.

As for Mary Kenny; yes Mary, lets be unequivocal about the sexual exploitation, serial rape and buggery of children who had been entrusted to these priest paedophiles. The leniency of sentences handed down to priests who 'interefered' with children is a scandal. Smyth's 12 year sentence was, sadly, the exception.