SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland
Sunday 3 March 2013
WHEN people turned up for mass a week past Saturday evening at Our Lady of the Waves Church in Dunbar they knew that it would be conducted by Cardinal Keith O’Brien.
What they did not suspect, however, was that it would be his last as Britain’s most senior Catholic.
The Cardinal, who was due to retire next month on his 75th birthday, had previously intimated that he was keen to move from Edinburgh to the East Lothian seaside town where he is a familiar figure.
Herbert Coutts, vice-chair of the church’s parish council, told the local paper: “The intention was that he would do masses in Dunbar as he could, so to speak, because there is a shortage of priests and our priest covers both Dunbar and North Berwick, so that would be of assistance to him.”
Whether that will now happen is anyone’s guess. Hours after telling one member of the congregation to “keep carrying the flag” for the Catholic Church, O’Brien was accused by three priests and one former priest, who is now married, of “inappropriate behaviour”.
What seems likely is that O’Brien would have known this was in the pipeline as he preached at Our Lady of the Waves. His four accusers, none of whom has yet been identified, circumvented the hierarchy of the Scottish Catholic church, and took their grievances directly to nuncio Antonio Mennini, the Vatican’s ambassador to Britain. The result was O’Brien’s resignation.
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