You Gotta Have Faith

I was struck by the reaction of Catholic worshippers to the news that Cardinal Keith O'Brien had been accused of 'inappropriate behaviour' towards four of his colleagues - three practising and one former priest. 

Instead of saying something along the lines of - 'How terrible, I hope the church authorities investigate these allegations and report on their findings as quickly as possible'.

All I heard from people coming out of Sunday mass were comments like - 'I don't believe a word of it, the Cardinal is such a good man'.

Now I don't know the Cardinal personally.

So I can't say whether he is a 'good man' or not - but what I do  know is that throughout human history 'good men' and 'good women' have sometimes done terrible things. 

In fact the whole business reminded me of the Oscar Pistorious trial in South Africa - where Oscar's family queued up to tell the cameras that their golden boy would never hurt anyone - even a fly.

Yet Oscar freely admits to killing his girlfriend - Reeva Steenkamp - with a powerful handgun and in circumstances that are highly suspicious to say the very latest.

But this cut no ice with Oscar's family - the whole thing was a tragic accident and Oscar was a victim - not a criminal who deserved to be locked up in jail for taking another human life.

I suppose the reason people behave this way is that they have faith - which is blind of course - faith involves believing in something or someone even when all the physical evidence tells you that what you are being asked to believe - is simply not true.

So contrast this ridiculous behaviour with the media storm engulfing the Lib Dems at the moment - over allegations that a senior party figure (Lord Rennard) had harassed and 'behaved inappropriately' to various Lib Dem women in recent years.

What did the Lib Dem hierarchy do? 

Well they set up a proper inquiry of course - with some serious independent input - and said that all of the allegations would be properly investigated and answered - publicly.

What they didn't do was to say that the party had complete faith in Lord Rennard - who must be innocent of all charges - because he is or was a 'good man'.

Contrast the Lib Dems behaviour with that of the Vatican or Cardinal Keith O'Brien - who has, of course, now resigned and has stood down from any further active duties - with the 'consent' of the outgoing Pope, Benedict XVI (also known as Joseph Ratzinger).