I will only resign if Pope asks me, says defiant Irish cardinal

I think I'll start as I mean to conclude, by laughing my arse off, because this is a strange and contradictory tale in a bunch of different ways...

I will only resign if Pope asks me, says defiant Irish cardinal

I'm reminded that the former head of the Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, was investigated by the police for helping to cover up the the "activities" of one Father Michael Hill (I think I have the name right), in Bath and Arundel. Hill was unable to change his behavioural pattern, when he was moved elsewhere, much like Smyth.

Anyway, back to Brady... My first observation is that the Catholic Church doesn't seem to have much truck with the Law. "Let's deal with things in-house," seems to be the party line. This apparently suits the abusers and those who engage in secrecy and cover-up much better than it does the so-called victims. I think it might be worth knowing what it is about abuse of all kinds (not just sexual), which is so damaging, but I digress. Anyway, the Catholic Church considers itself to be above the Law.

Now, as I understand it, one may argue that only God has a right to decide guilt, and thus the Catholic Church is merely holding true to its beliefs in not permitting mere mortal men to move into the territory of their imaginary friend in the sky for the purpose of punishing their brethren. Sorry, that sounds scathing, but, hey, fuck you - while it may be God's sole right to decide on matters of good and evil, there seems little question that people have been damaged, and until the Catholic Church can devise a means of repairing that damage, it seems prudent to try to prevent it from happening. Part of that would seem to involve acknowledging that certain of their number are a risk to children, in particular, and not turning a blind eye to the potential for abuse, until such time as it happens, again, when another cover-up is actioned.

Mind you, if only God has a right to decide questions of good vs evil, then I'm struggling to understand how it is that the Catholic Church has the right to instruct people on moral and spiritual questions. Perhaps it's because the monkey in a white dress (aka His Holiness the Pope), has a hotline to God, or, at least, is so holy and wise that he is able to interpret God's words as laid down by, erm, men. So, he's able to interpret the words of other men, how accurately, we'll never know, because the words he's interpreting were written by people long since dead, and thus they're not able to set him right. Okey-dokey.

Anyway, Brady is only going to resign when the Pope asks him to, even though he's already demonstrated that his allegiances lie most closely with his "club" rather than those whose souls he's supposed to be ministering to.

OK, solution: fuck the Catholic Church, which appears to be keen to shirk its responsibilities, in all respects. Work out how to fix the damage caused to those abused, and then get on with it.