How many sexually predatory Irish Catholic priests were exported to the U.S.? [Updated with video]

One clear example: Rev. Brendan Smyth, a sexually predatory Irish priest who, after questions about his behavior arose in Ireland, was assigned to Our Lady of Mercy in East Greenwich from 1965 to 1968. Where Jeffrey Thomas of Massachusetts and Helen McGonigle of Connecticut say he raped them.

As a result of that childhood experience, they want some answers, as do the others who joined them in news conferences on Monday in Providence, R.H., and Boston, Ma.

How many other sexually predatory Irish priests were exported to the United States and part of the decades-long Irish coverup? Where they re-offended?

Simple questions, for which bishopaccountability.org is seeking answers. According to The Providence Journal, "they sent letters to Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Boston archdiocese and Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence diocese, asking that they search their personnel files for information about accused Irish priests who had served in their areas."

They already have a short list, writes Meghan Irons of the Boston Globe. BishopAccountability.org:

. . . unveiled today the names of 60 to 70 accused priests it says were either born in Ireland or are of Irish descent who came to the United States and re-offended. [And] demanded that Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston and Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence to comb the records of their dioceses and make public the names of any credibly accused Irish priests who have worked there.

. . .

BishopAccountability.org. has compiled a database of 3,000 names of accused priests and said about one third of them have links to Ireland, which is reeling from revelations of a decades-long cover-up of abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. Four Irish priests resigned this month as news unfolded.

There is one simple, right response for the Roman Catholic Church: The cooperation required to secure reliable answers.

Norbertine Abbot acknowledges Smyth's abuse

From The Providence Journal:

In an extraordinary letter sent to a television station in Ulster, the Norbertine abbot who had been Father Smyth's religious superior for 25 years acknowledged that he and others had known for decades that Father Smyth had a "problem" with children, and thought they could deal with it by having him reassigned every two or three years to prevent him from forming "attachments to families and children."

Two of those assignments involved duty in the United States: three years as a parish priest at Our Lady of Mercy parish in East Greenwich in the 1960s, and an assignment years later in North Dakota. In both places, according to the superior, Father Smyth molested children.