Cardinal Brady should face criminal probe says Smyth child victim, Human Trafficking in Canada

articles:
- Church crisis: Cardinal Brady should face criminal probe says Smyth child victim
- Abuse survivor: Without courage or integrity Cardinal Brady failed and it is unforgivable
- In full: Cardinal Brady responds to allegations over role in abuse inquiry
- Professor Perrin Appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister (first book, Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking)


Church crisis: Cardinal Brady should face criminal probe says Smyth child victim

By Independent.ie reporters

Friday May 04 2012

A WOMAN, who was sexually abused as a child by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, today called for a criminal investigation into the actions of Cardinal Sean Brady.

American lawyer Helen McGonigle, (50) who now campaigns for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, said the All Ireland Primate should resign for not alerting other families to Smyth’s horrific catalogue of abuse.

She was molested by Smyth in the late 1960s in Rhode Island, New York.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster today, Ms McGonigle said she was "outraged" by Cardinal Brady's response to allegations in a BBC documentary broadcast this week.

She said Cardinal Sean Brady's "duty as a human" was to protect children and his failure to act properly on Brendan Boland's complaint – when he named other five other children being abused - was "unforgivable".

The Cardinal had shown "arrogance and insensitivity", Ms McGonigle said.

She was just six-years-old and preparing for the sacrament of penance when she was abused by Smyth, who led her from her classmates into the sacristy of the church where he molested her....

Smyth was already known to have sexually molested children when he was sent to the McGonigles' parish in the summer of 1965. Using his usual modus operandi, he befriended the family and they bonded over a shared Irish ancestry.

Speaking to the Irish Independent two years ago, Ms McGonigle, who is an attorney living in Connecticut, said: "From 1967 until about 1970 he molested me. He was caught in my parish molesting children as early as 1968....

While any intervention by Cardinal Brady in 1975 would have been too late to save the children of East Greenwich, Ms McGonigle said many others could have been protected....

She said Cardinal Brady must resign and he should be charged with obstruction of justice.

"He sat on this knowledge for 35 years, from 1975 through to 2010, and Brendan Smith continued to abuse children. It is only because of the lawsuit one of his victims has brought that he has had to show his hand."
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/church-crisis-cardinal-brady-should-face-criminal-probe-says-smyth-child-victim-3099251.html



Abuse survivor: Without courage or integrity Cardinal Brady failed and it is unforgivable  5/3/12

....Now an executive director of Amnesty International Ireland, O’Gorman was not satisfied with the similar but weak defence offered by Scicluna and Brady yesterday that back in 1975 Brady was only a ‘notary’ in the interviews.

“Authority is not needed to walk into a Garda station to report the abuse and rape of children. It takes courage and a sense of moral decency,” he said, adding that it was important to remember that Brady was a highly-educated and qualified Canon lawyer at the time. He was also 35-years-old.

Commenting on the atrocious acts of Smyth that spanned a forty-year period, O’Gorman recalls the level of terror still visible in Brendan Smyth’s victims years later as something “extraordinary”.
http://www.thejournal.ie/abuse-survivor-without-courage-or-integrity-cardinal-brady-failed-and-it-is-unforgiveable-437703-May2012/



In full: Cardinal Brady responds to allegations over role in abuse inquiry 5/2/12 http://www.thejournal.ie/in-full-cardinal-brady-responds-to-allegations-over-role-in-abuse-inquiry-437208-May2012/



Professor Perrin Appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister

UBC Law Professor Benjamin Perrin has recently been appointed as Special Advisor, Legal Affairs & Policy in the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa....

In 2010, Professor Perrin published his first book, Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking (Penguin Canada, 2010). The book, an expose on the issue of human trafficking in Canada, was named one of the top books of the year by The Globe and Mail.

He has testified before a number of Parliamentary committees studying the issue of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation. In 2010, Parliament adopted Bill C-268, a private members' bill calling for mandatory minimum sentences for child traffickers. Professor Perrin proposed and helped draft the bill, which was first introduced to the House of Commons in January 2009 by Member of Parliament Joy Smith....

Professor Perrin...is co-editor of Human Trafficking: Exploring the International Nature, Concerns and Complexities (CRC Press, 2011), and editor of Modern Warfare: Armed Groups, Private Militaries, Humanitarian Organizations and the Law (UBC Press, 2012). http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2012/may/05_01_12_perrin.html