Ex-Cardinal Keith O'Brien Urged to Help Gay People

The Edinburgh Evening News
January 7, 2014

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/ex-cardinal-keith-o-brien-urged-to-help-gay-people-1-3258448

Keith O'Brien. Picture: Danny Lawson

SHAMED Cardinal Keith O’Brien has been urged to tell his life story to help gay people in all walks of life who have felt the need to pretend to be heterosexual.

Former Irish President Mary McAleese, said the Catholic Church had been in denial over homosexuality for decades and that it was “not so much the elephant in the room but a herd of elephants”.

She told the Royal Society of Edinburgh: “I would have thought Cardinal Keith O’Brien, in telling the story of his life – if he was willing to do that – could have been of great assistance to gay people, not just in the Church but elsewhere, who felt over many, many years constrained to pretend to be heterosexual while at the same time acting a different life.”

Mrs McAleese said that, like so many closet homosexuals, Keith O’Brien hoped to divert attention from himself by raising his voice “in the most homophobic way”.

He resigned as Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh last year after admitting “inappropriate behaviour”