Ireland's top Catholic 'won't quit' in paedophile priest case

The embattled head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has signalled he would not step down over his links to a clerical child sex abuse scandal.

Cardinal Sean Brady, under intense pressure to quit amid a paedophile priest controversy gripping the Church in Europe and the United States, expressed his commitment to working towards a "genuine healing and renewal in the Church."

"In the years that remain to me as Archbishop of Armagh, I am fully committed to building on the substantial progress made in child safeguarding in recent years," he said in a statement yesterday.

Brady -- Archbishop of Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as being Primate of All Ireland -- made the comments as new details of abuse were released by the Irish Catholic Church's child protection watchdog.

He has faced calls to quit after it emerged that as a 35-year-old priest in 1975 he met two children abused by a notorious paedophile clergyman, Father Brendan Smyth.

The children were required by Brady to sign an oath of silence about their abuse and to agree to talk to no one about their interviews except authorised clergy.

The police were not informed and Smyth went on to abuse children in Ireland, Scotland and the United States before he was finally convicted 20 years later and jailed for a catalogue of sexual offences.

In his comments late last night, Brady said he would work "to bring about the healing, repentance and renewal set out for the Church in Ireland by Pope Benedict XVI."