Election in Rome 1
Katie Grant
Election in Rome 2
R D Kernohan
Ian Hamilton, Maggie Craig and George Gunn
Is there room in the tea-room for a kind word for Keith O’Brien? (4 March) I once emailed him by mistake. I had been asked to canvas the support of the cardinal for some good cause or another.
I said ‘No’. I was a black presbyterian atheist and they could get someone better. Only after I pressed the button did I notice that it was a round-robin email and among those addressed was Cardinal O’Brien himself. He sent me a wonderful email in reply full of wit and affection.
I’m still a black presbyterian atheist but I have a warm regard for the cardinal. Would that all those who condemn him were as kind as he.
Ian Hamilton QC
I absolutely agree with Kenneth Roy’s article on Keith O’Brien. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I met the cardinal once, liked him, always thought he was one of the good guys. For the record, I’m a lapsed Presbyterian.
Maggie Craig
I admire Kenneth Roy’s frame of mind. I have no love for cardinals of any kind. To me O’Brien is a human being and for the press to call anyone a hypocrite is ironical in the extreme. Or is it parody? Who knows? Whatever the man did all religions kill their own anyway. Keep it up, Kenneth. It is far too easy for me, an anarchist, to hate a cardinal. I don’t.
George Gunn
Thank you, Kenneth Roy, for being the lone media voice to speak out against the mob mentality that would attack Keith O’Brien like a pack of wolves.
David Thomson
I’m sorry, Mr Roy, but neither I nor, I suspect, the majority of those at the receiving end of Cardinal O’Brien’s condemnation of our sexuality will be shedding a tear at the good Cardinal O’Brien’s resignation nor his treatment by the media. This is not schadenfreude, but relief at the exposure of a hypocrite. P E O’Donnghaile in the Cafe suggests we ‘should resist the temptation of the charge of hypocrisy’. Indeed? How very convenient. What else should it be called? Let’s call a spade a spade.
The cardinal over and over again used the power and authority of his office to mount outspoken attacks against a group whom, in the words of Professor Haldane (adviser to the Vatican) his church believes to lead ‘an intrinsically disordered lifestyle’. Kenneth Roy attempts to defend a hypocrite by pointing the finger at the Palace of Westminster. This is not quite the same thing, surely, since politicians don’t use the power of their office to make moral judgements about others, or if they do they are very quickly exposed in the same way. John Major’s ‘family values’ comes to mind.
What about the effect the cardinal had on those within his church who finally found it possible to speak out? Or the damage inflicted on young and vulnerable individuals struggling to come to terms with their sexuality? Who champions them?
Richard Guest
Kenneth Roy’s article on the media assassination of Cardinal O’Brien is very timely. In any other walk of life if one were pursuing a complaint against one’s ‘line manager’ then this would be dealt with through the proper organisational channels before this was gazetted via a journalist, assuming it was in the public interest for this to occur.
Ms Deveney of the Observer assures us that the complainant priests have made sworn affidavits to the Papal Nuncio. That is right and proper. What stinks is that someone, somewhere (one or more of these priests, someone else?) is running another track of allowing a newspaper to report on this with both a great deal of necessary vagueness (because the process of church investigation remains ongoing) while at the same time generating more and more sensational and half-informed comment across the media.
The only winner here in the having one’s cake and eating it award: Observer sales (they hope). Journalism and its rent-a-quote chatterati at their pious worst. I would not want to see my worst enemy treated in the way that Cardinal O’Brien has been.
Gerry Carruthers
There is pressure, quite intense pressure, for the four priests who have lain complaints about Cardinal O’Brien before the pope, to declare themselves and their causes for complaint before all. In time, in good time – which is a long way off – no doubt that will happen. Much of the current commentary that presses for details seeks to make a common judgement, a judgement by those not charged with balance.
I know nothing of the details of the allegations and therefore have no view on them. I have confidence in the Catholic Church’s processes to examine them in detail and to come to sound judgement. I am not a Catholic and have cause to be highly critical of their handling of abuse allegations over decades. Central to that is supporting folk to voice their concerns, tell what happened. Not easy. So I say back off on the four. Let it all come out in time. If we want the truth.
Angus Skinner
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