Knowledge is a dangerous thing
by planetparker
The Catholic Communications Office has revealed that, in 1975 then Bishop of Kilmore Francis McKiernan suggested that paedophile priest Brendan Smyth should see a psychiatrist (no doubt the hierarchy’s pet shrink Donal Lydon). I don’t care what McKiernan said or recommended. He could have advised him to go to a Dicky Rock concert as far as I’m concerned. The fact is he knew about Brendan Smyth and the allegations that had been made about him, but never sought to inform the agents of law and order in the state.
This knowledge sits uneasily with the claims made on numerous occasions by Dr McKiernan to a group of pupils in St Patrick’s College Cavan, that he had known “nothing” about the Brendan Smyth case. It also is hard to square with the assertion, much repeated by some of the faithful in Cavan, that Bishop McKiernan had only learned of Fr Smyth’s actions in the confessional, and was therefore bound by the confidentiality of the Rite of Penance not to divulge anything to the Gardai.
