Britain's Cardinal - strident anti-gay - implicated in new scandal

And it's fellow priests implicating him.

http%3A//www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/uks-top-cardinal-accused-of-inappropriate-and-intimate-behavior-with-priests/2013/02/24/056e09f8-7eaf-11e2-a671-0307392de8de_story.html%3Ftid%3Dts_carousel



• He was mentioned in a Pope thread either yesterday or the day before. It mentioned that he got a "Bigot of the Year" award recently.

• In Britain, the accusations against Cardinal Keith O’Brien — head of the church in Scotland and one of this nation’s most strident opponents of gay rights — were escalating into a national furor. The controversy revolved around a report first published Saturday night on the Web site of Britain’s Observer newspaper, saying that four men — three priests and one former priest — had denounced O’Brien this month, accusing him of engaging in “inappropriate” and “intimate” behavior.

• In Britain, the Observer report was considered additionally explosive because of O’Brien’s public stance on homosexuality. Last year, O’Brien decried the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage here as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right.” He has described homosexuality as immoral and was singled out by the London-based gay advocacy group Stonewall for a 2012 “bigot of the year” award.

• Here's the original article. This sounds like his own scandal. Doesn't seem to be part of the gay mafia inside the Vatican scandal? Or maybe they are leaking a little piece at a time. The Vatican just keeps taking hit after hit.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/23/cardinal-keith-o-brien-accused-inappropriate

• This sounds quite bad. There are movements to get him and Mahoney out of the conclave. [quote]The Observer quoted one man who said he was a 20-year-old seminarian in the 1980s when first approached by O’Brien. After O’Brien was promoted to bishop, the unidentified man said, he left the priesthood “to preserve my integrity.” [quote]“You have to understand the relationship between a bishop and a priest,” the paper quoted the man as saying. “At your ordination, you take a vow to be obedient to him. He’s more than your boss, more than the CEO of your company. He has immense power over you. . . . He can move you, freeze you out, bring you into the fold. . . . He controls every aspect of your life.”

• Lay groups are orchestrating a campaign to prevent Cardinal Roger Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, from attending the conclave to choose the next pope. Mahony was stripped of his duties last month over allegations that he shielded pedophilic priests in the 1980s.

• The men recently reported their allegations to the Vatican emissary in London with the aid of an intermediary from their diocese in the week before the pope’s resignation. The move appeared pegged to O’Brien’s planned retirement next month. The men were demanding O’Brien’s immediate resignation and apparently went public in an effort to block the cardinal from taking part of the papal conclave.

• Both Mahony and O'Brien will turn up at the Sistine Chapel to join the voters. There is no dignity or discretion among these uber-entitled hypocrites.

• Just. Wow. The whole anti-gay hypocrisy saga is unending in all conservative, organized, XTian religions, Catholicism being the largest. I can never become "ex-gay," but I can and have become ex-Xtian. It was so very easy and joyful.

• I hope this starts the final phase of Catholicism. What a silly, hateful organization. Frankly, I think they should be prosecuted here in the US under the RICO statutes. Finish them off please!

• damg

• Why does everyone rally against Mahony yet Cardinal Dolan in NY gets a total pass just because his major misdeeds happened when he was heading up the now-bankrupt Milwaukee diocese (he shielded a bunch of money from the people suing for sex abuse by putting it in the cemetery fund right before they declared bankruptcy)? As for the end of the church, supposedly the next pope is to be the last pope according to some middle age prophecy that had benedict as the penultimate pope.

• [quote]As for the end of the church, supposedly the next pope is to be the last pope according to some middle age prophecy that had benedict as the penultimate pope. That's the Prophecy of St. Malachy, which was "discovered" in the 1590s, and was incredibly accurate on all the popes describes up until its discovery, and incredibly inaccurate on all the popes since. Funny, that.

  The Voice of the Night

• Ave MARY!

• O’Brien, an outspoken critic of plans by the Scottish and Westminster governments to introduce marriage equality, believes priests should be able to marry if they so wish. In an interview with BBC Scotland, Cardinal O’Brien stated that some issues – for example abortion and euthanasia – were “basic dogmatic beliefs” of “divine origin” which the Catholic Church could never accept. However, he also said it would be within the scope of the new Pope to consider whether the Catholic Church should change its stance on other issues, which were not of divine origin. The cardinal explained: “For example the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry – Jesus didn’t say that.

• O'Brien has officially resigned and says he will not attend the conclave

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/britains-top-catholic-cleric-resigns-after-accusations-of-inappropriate-behavior/2013/02/25/38e23018-7f3e-11e2-8074-b26a871b165a_story.html%3Fhpid%3Dz4

• Watching this unfold is so much fun.

• "Why does everyone rally against Mahony yet Cardinal Dolan in NY gets a total pass just because his major misdeeds happened when he was heading up the now-bankrupt Milwaukee diocese (he shielded a bunch of money from the people suing for sex abuse by putting it in the cemetery fund right before they declared bankruptcy)?" Who cares? It's funny how Americans think being molested entitles you to lots of cash in a lawsuit. I feel more sorry for kids who are molested by people who aren't rich or connected and can't get rich by suing a powerful institution.

• Now the Vatican is saying that a Cardinal can recuse himself from the vote. Before this it has always been it is every Cardinal's "duty" to vote. The thing is - there has never been any accountability required of a Cardinal. Follow Canon law and you can do whatever you want. No wonder this Church has always - always - been in trouble. With God and the world.