Vatican Sex Crime Prosecutor to Investigate Cardinal Keith O’brien

By Stephen Wilkie
Scottish Express
April 5, 2014

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/468755/Vatican-sex-crime-prosecutor-to-investigate-Cardinal-Keith-O-Brien

Cardinal Keith O’Brien was disgraced by the Church following sex abuse investigations[GETTY]

Maltese?Auxiliary?Bishop Charles Scicluna, who headed the team examining clerical abuse for a decade, will be in Scotland next week to take evidence about alleged sexual misconduct.

Cardinal?O’Brien’s successor, Archbishop Leo Cushley, gave details in a letter to clergy in the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

He said Bishop Scicluna would “listen to and report the testimony offered by past and present members of the clergy concerning any incidents of sexual misconduct committed against them by other members of the clergy”.

I believe that this is a positive step towards truth and eventual reconciliation

Archbishop Cushley, via letter

Cardinal O’Brien stepped down in February 2013 after acknowledging that his sexual behaviour as a priest, bishop and cardinal, had “fallen beneath the standards” of a clergyman.

Following allegations from three serving priests and a former seminarian, the Cardinal was told to have a period of repentance and reflection outside Scotland.

In his letter, Archbishop Cushley urged his clergy to co-operate with the inquiry.

He wrote: “I believe that this is a positive step towards truth and eventual reconciliation. This may not be an easy thing to do, but it is the right thing to do.”

According to Archbishop Cushley, Bishop Scicluna will visit the archdiocese between April 8 and 10 and “will be available to listen” to complaints.

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He has also asked those who wish to speak to “prepare their narrative in writing”.

Bishop Scicluna is best known for being asked in 2005 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger– who went on to become Pope Benedict XVI – to collect testimony on serial sexual abuser Fr Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

In this post, he reviewed hundreds of case files of priests who were eventually dismissed for sexual abuse.

He also served as the promoter of justice at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until 2012, when he was made Auxiliary Bishop of Malta.

The new investigation, under strict canon law, is the first in Scotland and could cost Cardinal O’Brien his Biretta, the red hat that symbolises his status within the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal O’Brien, 76, born in Ballycastle, Co Antrim, and raised in Dunbartonshire, had planned to retire to Dunbar, East Lothian, when the scandal broke.

He was ordered to leave Scotland by Pope Francis after it emerged one former priest was planning legal action, claiming he had touched him inappropriately and kissed him as a 19-year-old seminarian in the 1980s.

Believed to now be living in Cumbria, Cardinal O’Brien was also accused of trying to touch a priest inappropriately at a drinks party held in Rome in 2003 to celebrate his elevation to cardinal, and to having had a long-term physical relationship with one of the complainants.