THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has denied reports that Cardinal Seán Brady offered his resignation to the Vatican two years ago over his handling of child rape cases.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Church said a news report about the resignation offer was “untrue”.
In a story on the front page of today’s Irish Independent, the newspaper reported the Vatican had refused Cardinal’s Brady resignation as it had no other priests who could replace him. However the Church has said today Cardinal Brady never offered to resign and the story is untrue.
The Cardinal, who is the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, has been under increasing pressure to step down over the past three days over his role in not alerting authorities about child sex abuse in the 1970s. Yesterday Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said that anyone who did not deal with the scale of the abuse ‘should not hold a position of authority‘.
The Catholic Communications Office said the news report had confused an announcement by Cardinal Brady in May 2010 asking for additional support from the Vatican at diocesan level at the height of the controversy of child sex abuse by Catholic priests.
“The news report seems to be confusing the announcement of Cardinal Seán Brady on 17 May 2010 requesting Episcopal support,” said the statement. ”No such offer of resignation was made”.
The Church said Cardinal Brady’s request for additional help had been put on hold pending the outcome of an Apostolic Visitation, a delegation from the Vatican who visited Ireland earlier this year, but it has now been ‘reactivated’.
Earlier today a prominent theologian and former doctoral student of Pope Benedict has said the Cardinal should resign over the new allegations.
Fr Vincent Tuomy said he believed the Cardinal had lost his moral credibility in the wake of the revelations.
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