Punishing the Victims


The Catholic Church's handling of the Cardinal Keith O'Brien has been both shameful and embarrassing - in equal measure.

The truth has now come out in the sense that Cardinal O'Brien has now accepted the veracity of allegations about his 'sexual misconduct' - having issued a mealy-mouthed apology and fled the country.

But not before the Church attacked the motives of the people making accusations against Cardinal O'Brien - demanding they come forward and indentify themselves.

In effect punishing and intimidating the victims - for daring to speak out and exposing hypocrisy at the highest levels within the priesthood.

Now that is what really stinks about this whole affair.

Not that people individually behaved badly, but that the Church as an institution took sides - by
treating some of its faithful as more equal than others - based on their seniority and position with the Church hierarchy.

The allegations against Cardinal O'Brien were first raised months ago according to reports - in October 2012 - and this was done through the proper channels not by leaking a story to the press.

Yet instead of setting up a proper inquiry and getting to the heart of the mater without fear or favour - the former Pope (Pope Benedict XVI) decided that Cardinal O'Brien should be allowed to retire gracefully on his 75th birthday - in March 2013.

In other words, nothing happened - from the victims' point of view at least.

And only then, out of sheer frustration, did the men making the allegations give their story to a journalist - Catherine Deveney - who was equally outraged at their treatment and the behaviour of the Church authorities.

The instincts of some within the church will be to move on as quickly as possible - appoint a new Cardinal and Pope so that life goes on, by and large, much as before. 

If that is what happens then I suspect that the standing of the Catholic Church will fall even further - because it will signal that an important institution in Scottish public life is allowed to operate to different standards than everyone else.

In short the Chuch will become a by-word - for double standards and hypocrisy.

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