UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Editorial
The Guardian, Monday 25 February 2013
The future pope Joseph Ratzinger dragged the Catholic church into the poisonous American presidential campaign of 2004, through a memo about denying pro-choice politicians communion. Its target was John Kerry, a sincere Catholic who nonetheless believed that the law should not dictate to women on abortion, and went on to lose to George W Bush (before popping up in London as President Obama’s secretary of state). Three years later, in an outburst that also suggested abortions were resulting in “two Dunblane massacres a day”, Cardinal Keith O’Brien attempted to unleash American-style culture wars on the UK, by questioning whether MPs supporting abortion rights should continue receiving communion.
It is only one expression of a notably unreflective priest’s desire to build a narrow church – there was also, for example, the intemperate likening of embryology research to Frankenstein. Another manifestation – and one that seems poignant in the aftermath of the Observer’s disclosure of allegations about “inappropriate acts” with younger priests, which prefigured his departure on Monday – was his trenchant denunciation of reforms to advance gay rights. After having opposed civil partnerships in the past, the cardinal – who was the archbishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews, and the leader of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland – last year pledged fresh funding for propaganda against gay marriage.
There is no Catholic monopoly on sexual scandal – as current events within the atheistically led Liberal Democrat party underline. It is also important to acknowledge that despite having been “resigned” (or, more precisely, “prematurely retired”) by the Vatican, Cardinal O’Brien has contested the allegations, which is what the claims reported by the Observer remain. But, stepping back from the specifics of this case, one cannot brush off the evidence that Rome has a special problem with sex. In the Vatican itself, even if one discounts innuendo about Pope Benedict XVI’s own proclivities as he hangs up his cassock, that cleric – who has denounced both homosexuality and masturbation as moral disorders – has indubitably been weakened by the perception that he looked away in some cases where priests abused boys. In the US and more particularly Ireland, the institution has been shaken by the failure of so many priests to live up to the chaste ideal that the church has long (though not always) imposed upon (most but not all) of its priests.
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