Priests Who Accused Cardinal Keith O'Brien Urged to Step out into the Open

By Peter Jennings
Daily Record
February 26, 2013

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/priests-who-accused-keith-obrien-1731723

Peter Jennings asked the priests who accused Cardinal O'Brien to identify themselves

A FRIEND of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s yesterday challenged the priests who accused him to have the courage to identify themselves.

Writer Peter Jennings, who has known O’Brien for more than 40 years, said: “I believe these priests should have the courage to come out and say exactly who they are.”

He also questioned why the priests made their claims through a senior figure in the diocese rather than directly to nuncio Antonio Mennini, the Vatican’s “open and accessible” ambassador to Britain.

Jennings added: “I would challenge these four men also to be more specific in their allegations.

“The talk of inappropriate behaviour is all very vague. It is not even clear if the allegations are sexual.”

Jennings first got to know O’Brien when he was at White Fathers’ junior seminary at Newtown St Boswells in the Borders in the late fifties and O’Brien was at the nearby senior seminary at Drygrange.

Jennings said: “I have never, in all the years I have known him, heard of any of these allegations and I have covered the Catholic Church as a writer since the 1970s.

“The first I heard of any of the allegations was on Saturday night when the story broke. Nor did I hear so much as a whisper up until then.”

The writer also questioned why O’Brien’s accusers did not come forward when he was made a cardinal, when he helped elect Benedict XVI eight years ago or when he entertained Benedict at his Edinburgh residence during the Papal visit to Scotland in 2010.