Banishing O'brien Answers Some Questions, Raises Others

By Abigail Frymann
The Tablet
May 17, 2013

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/575/17

So Rome has ordered Cardinal Keith O'Brien to leave Scotland, three months after it was first reported that four priests and a former priests accused him of 'inappropriate acts'.

For a Prince of the Church this is a colossal and rare humiliation - not just for the owner of the red hat but also for the Vatican that gave it to him. The Church has no process for stripping a cardinal of his position in the way that it can remove a priest from ministry - O'Brien is not, as one national newspaper wrote this week, an 'ex-cardinal'.

Back in 2003, curiously, when he was given his red hat, O'Brien was made to swear an unusual oath that reaffirmed his allegiance to defending the Church's teaching, especially on priestly celibacy, the immorality of homosexual relations, and contraception.

This could explain the forcefulness way in which he spoke out about gay marriage (a 'grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right') and about abortion (equating the number of abortions in Scotland to 'two Dunblane massacres a day').

But re-read today, it also suggests some people in Rome knew or suspected something of what we now know, and had their reservations about his being promoted to the College of Cardinals.

Unsurprisingly, groups such as SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are underwhelmed by his being asked to leave. They see getting him out of Scotland as a PR exercise in damage limitation rather than any kind of punishment.

The Vatican has to act and be seen to act with transparency and fairness with regards to O'Brien, his clergy, and the laity and others who are hurt, confused and angry. Spiriting away its worst behaved clergy doesn't help it against accusations that it would still prefer to cover up scandal. Let's face it, the Church is supposed to lead the secular world on moral issues, not follow reluctantly behind.