IT turns out that secrecy clauses which bind the victims of clerical rape to silence were not confined exclusively to the distant past.It has been argued that in the Ireland of 35 years ago consciences were guided by different values.
One bishop even suggested on air yesterday that the law regarding the sexual abuse of children was so imprecise back in 1975 that it was hard to know what to do about paedophile priests.
Way back then, in that strange and demented society, Cardinal Brady was a small cog, a mere note taker, as frightened children were required to swear oaths of secrecy.
But that was then.
Times have supposedly changed.
Under the 'Framework for the Church's Response to Child Abuse', introduced in 1996, and the more recent 'Safeguarding Children -- Standards and Guidance for the Catholic Church in Ireland', priests and bishops are required to report to the civil authorities any concerns they may have about a potential threat to children.
Those are the rules laid down by the church.
And yet a senior cleric, Monsignor Maurice Dooley, can brazenly admit that he would "do nothing" if a paedophile priest told him he had committed vile crimes against children.
So, have things changed all that much since 1975?
In one case, involving Cardinal Brady, it appears they have.
He is reported to have refused, in recent times, to be a party to a confidentiality agreement in a case in which a priest was accused of abusing a young girl.
The priest was tried on only one of a number of allegations and acquitted.
Nevertheless, he has been suspended and denied unsupervised access to minors.
In another case that has just come to light, a girl who was allegedly sexually abused for 10 years was sworn to secrecy in an out-of-court settlement in 2000 without admission of guilt by the church.
On St Patrick's Day, Cardinal Brady expressed his desire for an end to "the drip, drip, drip of revelations of failure."
The church now must decide whether out-of-court settlements, with built-in secrecy clauses, feed the drip of disclosure, or whether it would be more wise to follow the advice of Archbishop Martin and simply reveal the truth and the whole truth about clerical child abuse.
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SIC: II