Cardinal Sean Brady’s engagement with the HIA
outlines a fundamental problem with organized religion: power and rank
too often take precedent over a commitment to personal conscience.
While
Cardinal Brady has tried to articulate it in a more sugar-coated way,
what his conduct in relation to Brendan Smyth shows is that he was
prepared to sacrifice his own sense of morality to preserve the power of
the Catholic Church in Ireland, and enable himself to climb the
Church’s ranking system through displaying an absolute commitment to
orders.