The whiff of sex scandal has been hanging around the Catholic church for as long as I can remember. Right now the Catholic population of Ireland are transfixed by the the possibility that the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady knowingly covered up for a known paedophile under his jurisdiction, Father Brendan Smyth who was jailed for 15 years for the sexual abuse of several children.
Cardinal Brady was born on 16th August 1939 in Drumcalpin, County Cavan in Ireland (no birth time known) so is a proud Leo with an exacting Virgo Moon. A lot of the pomposity of the Leo influence is lost when combined with a Virgo Moon which rather than going all out to impress immediately, carefully does a lot of the detailed work and deliberation first. Cardinal Sean’s impulses and instincts will be to help others and do small gestures and favours for them that will eventually have a big effect on their lives.
The other thing I notice about this chart is a complete lack of planets in either air or water. Here is someone who finds it difficult to fit into ones social network or emotionally with other people. Often people with a lack of water need an organisation which they can tap into to feel accepted as a way of expressing emotions, as the emotional feel that most people experience naturally does not come to them, hence the attraction of the calling of the church and the catholic religion where the emotion one feels is enhanced by the collective nature of the services to God. The lack of Air signs often encourages one to network extensively and to push one’s points of view forward with gusto, simply because that natural communicative air does not come naturally to them – they have to work at it.
Cardinal Brady’s chart shows a Mars/Pluto/Saturn South Node t-square which indicates to me that he had a very difficult and possibly aggressive mother to who he was tied by a bond of love. He is certainly kind but coolly independent (Uranus square Sun/Venus), an idealist with a big loud message showed by Venus conjunct Mercury trine Jupiter with the ability to see the big and wide picture in most matters (Mercury trine Jupiter). The cardinal is a gentle soul with Neptune conjunct to the Moon in service led Virgo which shows an empathy for and need to help the suffering and an understanding of universal love.
There is a very powerful earth trine that exists on this chart from the Neptune in Virgo to Uranus in Taurus and Mars retrograde in steady Capricorn. Grand trines are a store of talent, a closed circuit of in this case common sense and practicality that Cardinal Sean can call upon at any time. This talent store shows vibrant and administrative energy (Mars in Capricorn) and no little inventive spirit in pushing a faith based message through the Neptune side of the grand trine. Neptune trine Uranus is very sensitive and intuitive (Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury ruling the higher mind) and shows someone who wants reinvigorate spirituality for the masses, although a slightly zealous feel can also be incorporated into the message. Neptune makes a focused quindecile to the other planet of faith Jupiter making the calling to faith based organisations and international ambitions even stronger. It is no surprise combining all these factors that Sean Brady ended up joining the church.
Now I want to turn back to that t-square for a moment. Saturn at the South Node at the point of a t-square is an achilles heel waiting to happen, a point of detriment where hard lessons will be learned and one may suffer a loss of face. In this case, the other two planets in the t-square show the nature of this banana skin in the chart, internalising actions, Mars crucially retrograde and in charge (Capricorn) keeping things “in house” over secrets of a degrading and sexual nature, represented by Pluto. Pluto can show the lowest form of human nature, depravity of an unimaginable scale.
And so to the long term progression chart which is a little speculative as we do not know the actual birth time of Cardinal Brady. Nethertheless, one can see from the progressed Moon that given even a little latitude in position, it would be somewhere close to or actually on the Saturn/South Node conjunction thus activating the natal t-square I just highlighted. All the secrets hidden from the past would now be exposed and given the light of day. The progressed Moon is also opposed by the progressed Sun which itself squares natal Pluto, if anything doubling the effect. really interestingly, progressed Mars is quindecile to Pluto almost exactly (0.16 degrees) highlighting actions (of a sexual nature? – Mars/Pluto) of the past.
Just on a side note on the character of Cardinal Brady, these days I am also looking at the stars and their relationships to the planets on the day of birth and they also provide a nice background to the life of the cardinal. He was born with the star Murzims the brightest of those in Canis Major the constellation of the big dog being the last star rising on the horizon before sunrise that day. This often relates to people in public speaking or someone who has a loud message to give out. His heliacal setting star is Ras Alhague which is the main star of Ophiuchus, the serpent holder constellation. This star setting shows that in his latter years, Cardinal Brady will be seen as a healer, someone who can soothe ills, solve problems and help those in need with his kind words and actions. With Saturn not only conjunct to the South Node on his line of destiny but also in paran relationship with the star Al-Rescha, in Arabic “the knot” which ties the two fishes of the constellation of Pisces (the traditional sign of the Catholic faith) together, his profession was always going to be one of preaching faith.
However hidden in the collection of stars ruling his latter years (stars setting) was the star Pollux (one of the twins of Gemini) in paran with Mars which normally translates as one who has unpopular or even dangerous opinions. Remember back that I said Mars was retrograde working on an internal level and was opposite Pluto. The opinions were secrets told to him by the victims of the horrendous acts for which Father Brendan Smyth was convicted. He held those views out of sight for a long time to protect his position and ambitions (Mars in Capricorn) until progressed Mars finally started to connect with Pluto to bring them out. It was the wrong thing to do and now he may pay a heavy price. Though he denies that he has done something wrong, I cannot see the Catholic majority in Ireland being able to accept him as their faith leader for much longer due to him effectively condoning such vile actions and crimes.
