Report From A Corrupt & Dying Church

"Young people here apparently admire the Health Minister, because they clearly model their physical appearance on hers. She now resembles the sister of Comrade Nkomo, after several months on the hippopotamus diet. Having her as Health Minister is like having a pacifist as minister for defence: she has taken her very large feet to New Zealand for a few weeks. This also is somewhat strange: rather like a minister for defence going on holiday during an invasion."
- Kevin Myers, "Irish Independent"

By Charley Brady

What a week, eh? Of course it's been dominated by the evil acts of that fine upstanding Christian Cardinal Sean Brady; but before we get to that paragon of virtue whose example we would do well to model our own sinful lives after, let's glance at some of the other events of the week.

As she continued her never-ending junket in New Zealand the Health Minister Mary Harney, much to my enjoyment, found herself embarrassed by a demonstration against her presence there.

I routinely refer to her as Death's Head Harney, others prefer Morticia, but the Irish NZ-based group of protesters went one further, calling her a vampire "bloodsucker".

Great stuff!

In scenes outside the Irish consulate in Auckland demonstrators held up posters depicting Ms. Harney with fangs and the words "Mary Harney - Go Home" printed underneath.

The organiser Joe Carolan said: "Mary Harney is the Irish Maggie Thatcher [I love it!]; hated by the people of Ireland, yet representing us in New Zealand for St. Patrick's Day.

"She has refused to come home from her 15-day junket to deal with the Tallaght X-ray scandal.

"While this scandal unfolds, she and three aides are enjoying the five-star trip at taxpayers' expense."

And her hubby, Joe. Don't forget the hubby.

What else? Oh yes, since he always gives us the impression that he just about makes ends meet, we were glad to learn through the Dail's Register of Members' interests that Bertie Ahern continues to keep the wolf from the door. He added to his several incomes in February 2009 by giving speeches on what a great guy he is in New York, first class trip for two, then a trip to Honduras and then back to New York to dispense more words of wisdom. Then it was a short break after this demanding schedule to see how his "autobiography" - i.e. a work of fiction that should really have been called "Bertie Ahern and the Chamber of Tell as Many Lies as You Can" - was going and how the tax-free arrangements were working out, before first class for two to Nigeria in April; all nicely rounded off with a November engagement in Madrid.

This added to his coffers to the tune of €146,000. He must be able to talk more coherently when abroad than he ever managed here, that's all I can say.

You know, we're used to Galway West T.D. Frank Fahey talking casually of his house in France, of his apartment in Boston, of the place in Moscow; we hardly even register the 15 apartments owned in partnership in Brussels. Or Portugal. Or Dubai. Or his shares in various companies. We just shake our heads and say, "Well, we voted them in"; but Bertie really particularly galls me by perpetually putting on that fake stutter and that "I'm so humble" hangdog look of his. The only person less humble would be what's-his-name from Dickens - Uriah Heep and his endless refrain of being ever so humble.

"I'm a humble man", my ass!

Dickens describes Heep in "David Copperfield" as having a "... propensity to constant movement or wriggling." How very appropriate.

Let's hope that one day the ever so 'umble Bertie meets his own Mr. MiCawber.

Also adding to the gaiety of the nation this week was a report in the "Irish Sun" showing that at the former holiday camp of Mosney in County Meath, we have shelled out over €30 million to care for 800 asylum seekers. Fine Gael's Immigration and Integration spokesman Denis Naughton said: "We have long said that the Department of Justice has taken its eye off the ball as far as the immigration system is concerned. It's obvious that the system is failing badly and that the taxpayer is paying the price."

He went on to say that we now have a backlog of 20,000.

I've long said that it's time to call a halt here. We have more than done our share for asylum seekers; but we are a small country and on top of that we are broke ourselves. Go ahead and call me a racist if that makes you feel better but the fact is that we can't keep letting immigrants in forever. It just doesn't make any sense.

Of course Fianna Fail wheeled out the tried and trusted "We have obligations under EU law" but surely immigrants are supposed to apply for asylum at their first port of call. No, they arrive in Ireland through convoluted, weird and wonderful ways because this is the Land of the Soft Touch; and of course the EU constitution now overrules our own one.

Killarney resident Trevor Jones made an interesting point in a letter to a newspaper some weeks back:

"Referring back to the opening of the European Parliament last July, attended by foreign minister Micheál Martin, the European federalists put on a military display by the little-known Eurocorps, which hoisted a large EU flag dwarfing the national flags of member states.

"Eurocorp is a prototype European army formed in 1993, with the first German and French troops, and later joined by soldiers from Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg.

"In 1998, it formed part of Nato's SFOR operations in Bosnia, sending 470 troops and, in 2000, sent another 370 to Nato's KFOR in Kosovo"

Mr. Jones concludes that between these actions Eurocorp "defined itself as a rapid reaction force at the disposal of Nato and the EU as a whole."

Of course, none of this particularly surprises those of us who voted against the Lisbon Treaty - on both occasions - but it riles me when I think of how we were mercilessly ridiculed as deluded paranoids every time that the question of a European army was mooted. Well, we are definitely on that track now.

And then there was Sean FitzPatrick. Ah, we had only waited over a year for the disgraced ex-chairman of Anglo Irish Banks to be arrested. Considering that the way in which Ireland's judicial system moves slightly slower than the geographical shifts of the continental plates, that is pretty good going.

The cops arrested him (without a warning, doesn't it just make your spine sort of tingle?) at 6.30am on Thursday last and held him for 31 hours, having asked for an extension.

I like to imagine the cops saying "Let's shake the sod out of his sleep nice and early" because I would imagine that they are as cheesed off as the rest of the populace at this arrogant little creep wandering around flaunting the law, taking holidays and still being allowed to play King of the damned Castle with his affluent lifestyle, his fine dining, his taste for good wine and not giving a damn about the people who have lost everything because of his double dealing.

Of course, it will be another year before he knows what is happening to him, but this is Ireland, so it might be well worth the wait if we can do it right this time and send a white collar criminal to jail. The thought that others that he is involved with (and according to those in the know he hardly stopped flapping his lips the whole time that he was in custody) may end up under arrest is so pleasing to the ordinary guy who would be banged up immediately if he was caught stealing a bottle of milk out of desperation.

After his release it didn't exactly break my heart in two to see him looking a little the worse for wear and without the usual smug grin plastered across his eminently punchable face.

For myself, I'll be looking forward to the day that he is left with only the shirt on his back.

No, I'll take that back: as he has left the smaller investors without a penny I want the shirt as well. Maybe they can sell it on eBay.

Still, the authorities can't touch his €2.5 million house and there seems to be some confusion over his Nigerian oilfield which is estimated at twenty million.

By the way, most of his Golden Circle friends to whom he gave extravagant loans from other people's money are nowhere to be seen at the moment.

Does that tell you something?

I'll certainly take great delight in keeping readers posted.

And Seanie? It's okay. I wasn't exactly counting on an invite to your next Duck and Goose Soiree in any event so feel free not to invite me. I have a hell of a healthy appetite and you may need the money.

[This just in as I go to send this piece: a headline saying "FitzPatrick may be quizzed again next year." I think that tells you all you need to know about the Irish judicial system.]

And so, having put it off as long as I could, I come to the horror that is Cardinal Sean Brady's admission that he was present when two children were forced to sign an oath that they would not speak of the terrible abuse they had suffered at hands of the late Father Brendan Smyth.

First off, let me say that I am utterly disgusted by some journalists, radio and television reporters who have felt the need to preface their reports by saying that Cardinal Brady - the Church in Ireland's most senior cleric - is a "sincere man".

No, he most emphatically is not. He is a liar by omission who, if this terrible crime had not come to light would have happily gone on pontificating on how the rest of us should live.

Imagine two ten year olds - raped and traumatised - who have the guts to go, in 1975, to the most senior figures that they know, only to be threatened with excommunication if they do not sign a document that seals their mouths from ever telling the world what happened to them. This is evil beyond belief; and yes, there were others involved but let's stay focused on the fact that because of Brady's toadying to his masters of the time, he was well rewarded for his complicity.

Five years afterwards - and I wonder if he ever thought of those children in the meantime - he was beginning a thirteen-year role as vice rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome. That's one hell of a nice promotion.

The Brady creature says that he was only a junior in 1975, but admits that he did believe the children's story. So: let's call him what he is and it is not sincere. He is a criminal because that is what you are if you know that a crime is being committed and refuse to call on the guards to let them know that a serial rapist and demon in a dog collar is loose and is going to remain loose because the organisation that you work for is more interested in protecting itself than protecting the most vulnerable of small human beings.

Junior? What sort of a man are you, Brady? You were 36-f******-years-old! Junior?

You say that you simply asked for secrecy to be observed. Oh, in the name of whatever warped God it is that you believe in, call it what it is. It was a conspiracy to cover up for the crimes of a paedophile! Don't try to give us your Canon Law bullshit! Because of you and your like this thing was able to go on abusing for decades!

He had already begun raping one girl - boys, girls, it didn't matter to Smyth - in 1974. Because of what you did this was to go on for a further four years after you bullied those children into signing a pact with you demons!

I hate you for this. I don't want to hear your mealy mouthed crap that things were different in 1975. If you had heard that Smyth had murdered someone would you still have sheltered him to protect your twisted organisation? Jesus Christ, man, you make Islam sound perfectly normal; and talking of Jesus, did you ever once ask yourself what he would have done? Or did you just switch off your conscience and focus on the ultimate glittering goal that was even then your life's ambition.

We've had the Usual Suspects this week whining their litany of "He who is without sin cast the first stone". So let me be the one to throw it even though I am definitely a sinner. What I am not is a rapist or one who would cover for such creatures. So, yeah, I'm happy to throw that stone at you, Brady.

We used to think that paedophiles were generally isolated due to the very nature of their loathsome activities; that it was the internet that made it easier for them to communicate and - God help us - "share" their activities. Well, now we know. Now we know that it is the very Church itself that has been one of the best-organised paedophile rings in recorded history. And I don't care that many were not actively practising child-molesters. You knew it was going on and you covered up for those doing it.

Because of what you, Brady, did in helping to browbeat two little mites that asked you for help, you allowed a monster like Smyth to go about his vileness for years. That's just the "oath" that we know about. Multiply that by who knows how many and what do you have?

Evil beyond belief.

Sincere? You? What you are is an ambitious bastard that let nothing stand in your way of climbing as far up the rotten tree as you could get, while hiding EVEN THIS WEEK behind the skirts of your mommy in Rome.

Well, Pope Benedict has thrown that one right back in your face in the last couple of days by distancing himself and throwing the blame on you and your bishops.

I have often said that there are good priests - priests that I would be happy to sit down and have a pint with - but that isn't good enough anymore. How can they stay part of an organised criminal gang and expect to change things from within? It can't be done. This is almost hermetically sealed. For crying out loud, the wing in which Smyth was kept was known as "the Vatican" because of the number of clerics doing time!

I'm losing patience even with decent Irish priests like Father Brian D'Arcy who at least spoke some sense this week by declaring:

"We should never ask any youngster to keep such an evil crime a secret. I can't understand how you can explain it away as having done the right thing by Canon Law."

He went on to quite rightly say that the Pope is "tainted" and - spot on - "The solution is not in Rome, the problem is in Rome. It's time we rescued the Church from the clerics."

Well, I think it's too late for rescuing. It is a corrupt organisation and that corruption reaches right to the top.

I gave up on it decades ago but I am so glad that my father - a terrific guy who gave me a great childhood - died before he could see the putrid underbelly of his beloved Church. It would have broken a kind man's heart.

That's the legacy of you people: for the believers still alive you have taken something from them.

And they can never get it back.

Whatever you believe and if you are struggling with so many doubts, I hope that you come through them.

It doesn't seem appropriate this week to give my customary sign-off. The only thing that I want to do after writing this on a beautiful Monday morning is to get into a hot shower for five minutes. A man feels dirty even writing this stuff

Take care, and may whatever God you believe in go with you.

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net