SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland
Tuesday 7 May 2013
Colette Douglas Home
Columnist
I too looked at the picture of the old man in the check shirt with mixed emotions – all of them uncomfortable.
The caption was a shout of outrage. It said disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien was moving boxes into his Dunbar house. His holiday home (owned by the church) would now be his retirement home. The subtext was: he’s getting off with it.
My first instinct was to avert my gaze. I was sorry his whereabouts had been drawn to my attention. I was repelled by the invitation to condemn him and I regretted the implication that there would be or should be a witch hunt.
Lynch mobs are dehumanising. No accused person is all bad and no accuser is all good.
And yet could it be right that the Cardinal’s post-scandal retirement mirrored so closely the one he had already planned?
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