NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Jane Graham– 04 March 2013
Fans of irony must have enjoyed the fast-tracking of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s resignation this week, following so quickly on the heels of his actually saying something ground-breakingly sensible.
This is not what we expected from the man who recently described gay marriage as a “grotesque subversion” and same-sex partnerships as being “harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved” – and who is now accused of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ towards a number of priests.
However last week, just before he was due to fly out to cast his vote in the papal election, O’Brien did make some significant and shrewd remarks. He pointed out that “Jesus didn’t say” priests should be celibate, and that “many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood, and felt the need of a companion”. …
Isn’t it also damned strange that an organisation which holds up heterosexual marriage as the ideal social union bans its leaders from experiencing it themselves? One can’t help wondering if this is about a general fear of the influence of wives. Did the Vatican start to notice 900 years ago that, regardless of how powerful a man might be, it was often the women who ran the house, influenced the children, and knocked their husbands into shape?
The Vatican has never been very keen on women. Its policy makes St Andrews golf club look like a bunch of woolly old feminists. Despite its veneration of Jesus’s mother, its fascistically hierarchical structure makes clear its belief that only men should have power, and indeed, only men should gather in dark rooms with other men to even discuss power. And they in turn should hand a wee bit less power down to more men.
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