SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland
‘There has been a constant drip of scandal connected to sexual abuse in the run-up to the conclave”
The View From The Vatican By Philip Willan in Rome
Sunday 3 March 2013
With rumour and intrigue swirling around the Vatican as cardinals prepare to elect a successor to Pope Benedict, the last thing the Roman Catholic Church needed was the ignominious departure last week of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.
The allegations against the cardinal are said to have been presented about a week before Pope Benedict announced his intention to step down on grounds of age and ill health – the same reason O’Brien gave for his own resignation last November, which the Pope originally said he would accept at some stage in the future, possibly on O’Brien’s 75th birthday on March 17.
Creating further confusion, on the day it was announced that O’Brien’s resignation had been accelerated, the Vatican published a statement saying the Pope had accepted the resignation on February 18 – a week earlier under canon 401, clause 1 of the church’s Code of Canon Law.
That clause refers to the obligation of bishops to present their resignation on reaching their 75th birthday, and makes no mention of ill health or “other grave causes” that can also be invoked for a bishop’s resignation.
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