Priest: Keith O’brien ‘a Predator since 1985’

By Chris Marshall
Edinburgh Evening News
March 28, 2015

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/priest-keith-o-brien-a-predator-since-1985-1-3731824

Disgraced Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Picture: Ian Rutherford

DISGRACED Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a “predator” who was involved in dozens of cases of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s, it has been claimed.

In an interview with Catholic newspaper the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year the cardinal became archbishop.

The man, one of five to have previously made allegations against the cardinal, said he believed at least 40 cases took place between 1985 and 2010.

Last week O’Brien again apologised for his “sexual conduct” after formally resigning from his role at a meeting with Pope Francis.

The 77-year-old stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February 2013 after allegations of inappropriate behaviour were made against him. Speaking to the Tablet, the unnamed man described how the cardinal made an “unmistakable” sexual advance to him at Archbishop’s House in Edinburgh in 1990 which the priest, who is not gay, said he rebuffed. He said that 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 added: “You’re controlled. You have no freedom of movement, of action. He can determine what your life is like.”

The priest said clergy might not have complained if Cardinal 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.

DISGRACED Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a “predator” who was involved in dozens of cases of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s, it has been claimed.

In an interview with Catholic newspaper the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year the cardinal became archbishop.

The man, one of five to have previously made allegations against the cardinal, said he believed at least 40 cases took place between 1985 and 2010.

Last week O’Brien again apologised for his “sexual conduct” after formally resigning from his role at a meeting with Pope Francis.

The 77-year-old stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February 2013 after allegations of inappropriate behaviour were made against him. Speaking to the Tablet, the unnamed man described how the cardinal made an “unmistakable” sexual advance to him at Archbishop’s House in Edinburgh in 1990 which the priest, who is not gay, said he rebuffed. He said that 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 added: “You’re controlled. You have no freedom of movement, of action. He can determine what your life is like.”

The priest said clergy might not have complained if Cardinal 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.