UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
By Patrick Sawer
12 Oct 2014
The husband of a woman involved in a close relationship with the Bishop of Arundel is to make an official complaint to Catholic leaders about his behaviour and is calling for him to be barred from the priesthood.
His intervention coincides with new claims about Bishop Kieran Conry’s intimate friendships with women in recent years. It has been claimed he may have had relationships with as many as four women in total, raising questions as to whether the Catholic church hierarchy turned a blind eye to what he was doing.
Simon Hodgkinson, whose wife Olivia is the woman most recently linked with the Bishop, is now compiling a formal complaint against him. It will be submitted to the Papal Nuncio, the Pope’s representative in the UK, along with Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, and the Vicar General, one of the church’s most powerful figures.
Citing canon law, the complaint will state that Bishop Conry not only broke his vows of celibacy, but in so doing flouted the church’s central teaching on adultery and the sanctity of marriage and family life by having such an intimate friendship with Mrs Hodgkinson, a mother of two, along with an affair with another married women.
It will also claim that the Bishop took advantage of his position of authority with both women, who had turned to him for spiritual comfort and advice after going through problems in their marriages.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.