SCOTLAND
Scotsman

Published on Wednesday 27 February 2013

IT IS, without doubt, the strangest of times to be Catholic in Scotland, but I would argue not necessarily the most disheartening if you’re liberal like me and desperate for change.

I know that there will be many traditional church-goers who feel cast adrift by Keith O’Brien’s resignation and bewildered by the allegations that have been made against him, and I have some sympathy for them.

If you are a parishioner who looked to him for spiritual guidance; who listened and invested in his and other Church leaders’ increasingly strident views on issues such as gay marriage, then you would, of course, be justifiably distressed by suggestions that he himself had engaged in “inappropriate behaviour” with other men.

Though O’Brien contests the allegations, made by three priests and a former priest, the very fact that they have been made will be…