UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham Mail
Maureen Messent
Were I a simpleton believing shock headlines and doom-laden news bulletins, I’d get the idea the Roman Catholic Church ‘is in crisis’ and has been shattered by the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.
That isn’t the case. What we are seeing here is an epidemic of selective media indignation.
Indeed, this is an excuse for wheeling out the old adage of events turning out all for the best.
The church isn’t in crisis, simply realising that great change has been forced on it.
Had the Pope not been resigning, it is likely that the cumbrous and slow-moving Vatican would not have moved against O’Brien for months.
Then, after his retirement, a few months would have elapsed, at which stage, out of the blue, the Vatican, with O’Brien now safely retired, would have told us that accusations of inappropriate behaviour had been made against him.
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