Cardinal sins

Former Cardinal Keith O'Brien

To say I have been saddened by the recent events surrounding Cardinal O'Brien would be an understatement.  When people who know him say they are "saddened" they seem to be referring to their regret at his fall from grace - in every sense.  But my sadness is different and more wide-ranging, covering a number of aspects of this whole sorry affair.

First, and most obviously, I am saddened by the extent of suffering undergone by the four complainants.  It is difficult for non-Catholics to understand the intimacy of the relationship between a person and their spiritual counsellor.  I remember how deeply shocked I was, twenty or so years ago, to encounter, in a gay nightclub in London's West End, a priest to whom I had been going for confession at Westminster Cathedral.  Part of the shock arose from the fact that he was gay, when the whole Church seemed to be fulminating against homosexuality; but part from the feeling that my trust, in confiding to him my own difficulties in this area, had been betrayed.  For a seminarian, finding himself the target of advances from his spiritual mentor could well be traumatic.

Secondly, I am saddened by the suffering that the Cardinal himself must have gone through in living this double life and suppressing, for the whole of his time as a priest, this most important part of his nature.  It's difficult enough being gay and coming out to friends and families.  I can hardly imagine how difficult it would be to live with this hidden conflict on a daily basis until late in life, in a role that involves preaching publicly against your own nature.

Thirdly, however, and above all, I am saddened by the stupidity, the waste, and the pain that emerges from the whole sorry saga.  On the radio yesterday, the former Cardinal, Cormac Murphy O'Connor, appeared to be expressing a view that this was just a blip, and the Church just needed to hold together and carry on.  No, your ex-eminence.  It is time for the Church to acknowledge openly that a vow of celibacy puts intolerable strains on too many priests for it to remain acceptable; that to continue with it will give rise to continued concealed relationships, both hetero- and homosexual, and a heightened risk of paedophilia, laying the Church open to ongoing charges of hypocrisy; that priests should be treated as individuals with sexual needs that do not need to be ruthlessly suppressed; and that women should be admitted into the Church's hierarchy with full equality.  Forget problems of belief in God; the main problem at the moment is belief in the Church.

I was reminded of something I wrote in 2005 following the death of the last Pope, John Paul II.  It's not great literature, but let me share it with you.

 

THE POPE DYING

As uniformly reverential tones
spoke of the Pope's last hours, I knelt and scrubbed
the kitchen floor.  The grout, the grimy stones,
emerged immaculate from where I rubbed.
And as I knelt, a homosexual man
quite arguably excommunicate,
I wondered if His Holiness might ban
my cleaning as an inappropriate
activity - as work for women, say,
reserved for Polish nuns, while he, John Paul,
pontificated through each holy day
(that's what men always had done, after all).
And then I wondered, as the stone shone clean,
if, after death, the Pontiff might look down
on worlds more richly varied than he'd seen,
where love takes different forms; and if he'd frown
at something that he'd missed; and if there'd creep
some thought that he'd been wrong; and if he'd weep.


Antony Mair