SCOTLAND
The Tablet (UK)
Elena Curti, Deputy Editor
10 May 2013
The return of Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien to Scotland has for many Catholics rubbed salt into the wound, two months after his admission of sexual misdemeanours and abrupt departure from office weeks before reaching the official retirement age of 75.
According to this narrative, the cardinal heaped scandal on the Scottish Church and the best thing he could do now is to disappear without trace. After all the hurt and embarrassment he has caused, it is easy to understand why some might resent the cardinal continuing with his plans to retire quietly to a church-owned house in the East Lothian seaside town of Dunbar.
It has been reported that the Vatican itself has told the cardinal to leave Scotland and that ‘church leaders’ want him to stay out of public life. However, Bishop Stephen Robson, an auxiliary of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has told The Tablet that the Church has a duty of care to Cardinal O’Brien and that he will be treated in the same way as all other retired priests.
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