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In Time, O'brien Could Still Redeem His Damaged Name

Herald Scotland
May 7, 2013

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/in-time-obrien-could-still-redeem-his-damaged-name.21008250



The caption was a shout of outrage. It said disgraced Cardinal Keith O'Brien was moving boxes into his Dunbar house. His holiday home (owned by the church) would now be his retirement home. The subtext was: he's getting off with it.

My first instinct was to avert my gaze. I was sorry his whereabouts had been drawn to my attention. I was repelled by the invitation to condemn him and I regretted the implication that there would be or should be a witch hunt.

Lynch mobs are dehumanising. No accused person is all bad and no accuser is all good.

And yet could it be right that the Cardinal's post-scandal retirement mirrored so closely the one he had already planned?

What about the young priests and seminarians he had assaulted? Would they see justice in this? What about Cardinal O'Brien's hypocritical ranting against homosexuals when he was behaving inappropriately himself? Would that community feel short-changed again?

A day or two later we heard the Vatican was exiling the disgraced Cardinal from Scotland following a letter from Archbishop Philip Tartaglia to the papal envoy warning of possible further damage to the church if Cardinal O'Brien maintained a public profile here.

Protective outrage was triggered. People who shared neither the Cardinal's faith nor his views wrote to The Herald to say enough was enough. He should be left in peace to enjoy the haven offered by the parishioners of Our Lady of the Waves in Dunbar.

One supporter said the Vatican has no right to tell a British citizen where he can and cannot live. That is incontestable.

Cardinal O'Brien is only compelled to obey Rome by his own vow of obedience. He volunteered it when he joined the priesthood. Of course he also needs a roof over his head and some sort of stipend for the rest of his days. His situation is, ironically, parallel to that of the dependent young priests who might have felt compelled to submit to his advances.

So what is the right way through this mess? Should he stay or should he be made an exile? In my view he should stay.

I think Archbishop Tartaglia's analysis is all wrong. If the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland is to redeem itself, it would be better for Cardinal O'Brien to stay.

In many ways life abroad would be the easy option. The Cardinal could while away his time in a quiet corner of sunny Italy where no-one knows of his humiliation.

In Dunbar, amid the haar, his reputation will clang before him like a leper's bell.

But the compassion that would afford him a civilised old age cannot extend to yet another cover-up. If the former leader of the church in Scotland stays in Scotland, I want him to talk.

I want everyone involved to talk: the priests who made the accusations and all those who knew some or all of what was going on but adopted the stances of the three wise monkeys.

We need some sort of peace and reconciliation inquiry to root out the truth.

There is a lesson in this sorry saga that involves the church accepting humanity in all its guises and being realistic about the demands it makes on its members – whether they are in the pews or on the altar.

We deserve to hear the unvarnished reality of the pressures of celibacy; to see a true picture of the numbers of priests who can't or don't hold to the rule; to acknowledge the proportion of priests who are homosexual.

We are living with this buried truth and have been doing so for years. It's time to be grown up and to face reality – to get it all into the open.

The fact is that people can be both sexual and spiritual. It is arguable that none of this trouble would have arisen if that was acknowledged and accepted – if the rule demanding celibacy was revoked.

A full and frank disclosure would do a great deal of good for those Cardinal O'Brien has most offended: the young men he targetted, the gay community and the trusting laity who swallowed his rants as gospel.

Most importantly he could enlighten us about why he behaved the way he did. What drove a presumably sincere and successful man of the cloth to risk everything – even on the day he received his Cardinal's hat?

He could inform debate, and thereby help to reform the imploding institution that is the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland – correction, that is the Roman Catholic Church, full stop.

Exile would be a cop out. Exile is the knee-jerk reaction. The church has form on shifting scandal-ridden priests. It moved paedophile priests from parish to parish thereby sparing itself embarrassment by burying the bad news. It was done at a terrible cost to the innocent victims.

In those cases it richly deserves the criticism it still suffers. In the case of Cardinal O'Brien, it deserves to be embarrassed. It appointed as its highest representative a homophobe who was sexually predatory to young men: a man who lived a lie and seems to have presided over a quagmire.

I do think it is wrong that he remains a Cardinal. It is not because of his sexual orientation or even his non-compliance with celibacy. It is because of the assaults and the hypocrisy. We are told the rules don't allow him to be stripped of the title. But in common with many of the man-made rules of the church, this one should be changed.

This scandal broke days before the Cardinals went into conclave to elect the new Pope and it has unfolded at a time of transition in Rome. I hope that is why reaction has been slow.

So far the new Pope looks promising. And although the full focus of the new regime has not yet fallen on Scotland, the news that no new bishops are to be appointed until further notice bodes well.

It suggests at least a close examination of the old order in Scotland to determine who here is deserving of higher office – and who has risen through the ranks for the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile Cardinal O'Brien, who some say is a broken man, need not despair. He is old enough to remember a politician called John Profumo who was Minister for War. His frolickings with prostitutes Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies brought down the Macmillan Government.

At the time (and for decades) his name was synonymous with scandal, decadence and mendacity. Who would have thought that before his death it had become a by-word for doing good?

Mr Profumo worked his passage back through quiet dedication to charitable causes. There's nothing to stop Cardinal O'Brien following suit.

There is still hope for the man and, if it is willing to listen, maybe hope for his church too.

 

 

 

 

 




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