Disgraced Cardinal Keith O’brien Was "a Predator" Whose Sexual Abuse Covered 25 Years- His Entire Reign As Archbishop, Claims Priest

By Charlie Gall
Daily Record
March 27, 2015

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/disgraced-cardinal-keith-obrien-a-5413348

A PRIEST, who has not been named, told the Catholic Church’s own newspaper The Tablet he believed at least 40 cases took place from 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop, until 2010.

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien was “a predator” whose sexual abuse covered 25 years his entire reign as archbishop, it’s been claimed.

A priest, who has not been named, told the Catholic Church’s own newspaper The Tablet he believed at least 40 cases took place from 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop, until 2010.

The Tablet spoke to the priest who insisted there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy.

Shamed O’Brien - Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric at the time - stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh in February 2013 after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.

Last week it emerged the Pope has allowed O’Brien to keep his cardinal title but it carries no “rights or privileges”.

The anonymous priest described how the cardinal made an “unmistakeable” sexual advance to him at Archbishop’s House, Edinburgh in 1990 which the priest, who is not gay, said he rebuffed.

He claimed the cardinal acted afterwards “as if nothing had happened…he blanked it completely”.

Asked why he did not make a complaint at the time, he replied: “Who would have believed me?

“Who could I have gone to that would have taken me seriously. The cardinal had his lawyers and they would have crushed me.”

He went on: “You’re controlled. You have no freedom of movement, of action. He can determine what your life is like.”

The priest further alleged O’Brien approached individuals in the guise of a confessor in order to groom them for sexual contact.

He said: “This is not a matter of people coming to him to confess, but him approaching them.”

The priest said clergy might not have complained if O’Brien had had a long-term partner.

“It’s not the fact that he was gay, which everyone knew about. But that he was a predator,” he said.

The allegations were put to Cardinal O’Brien for a response.

A spokesman said: “Cardinal O’Brien refers any further inquiries regarding his past or present situation to the statements issued by the Holy See Press Office on Friday 20 March 2015 or by himself on the same date.”

Also speaking to The Tablet, O’Brien’s successor Archbishop Leo Cushley said the sex scandal had damaged the Church’s credibility and demoralised Catholics.