Patricia McKeever does not like to be photographed.She does not like people to know where she lives and prefers to communicate with the outside world by letter or e-mail.
But, from the security of her home, the 58-year-old former secondary school teacher has co-ordinated a relentless campaign to name and shame gay Roman Catholic priests.
Her newsletter , Catholic Truth, has so far confronted up to a dozen priests about their alleged homosexuality and has named at least four as being gay or allegedly associating with gay men.
It claims to have privately challenged several more priests after receiving information that they attended a gay bar in Glasgow and has also, it says, confronted a seminarian, a prospective seminarian and a Catholic school teacher.
It is currently preparing a “dossier” on a priest it accuses of inviting a homosexual support group into his church and expects to identify him in the newsletter’s next issue.
But what Ms McKeever calls her “great work of charity” has not met with universal approval.
The Archdiocese of Glasgow has labelled her group as “self-appointed heresy hunters” and accused her of harassment.
Worse, she recently had to call the police after receiving package after package of hard-core pornography.
Ms McKeever, who intends to expose all priests “unconscionably living a double life”, told The Times in a telephone interview that she had been forced to take action because of an “unprecedented moral crisis” in the Catholic Church”.
She was not prepared to have her photograph taken.
She said: “The Church has always taught that homosexuality is contrary to its teachings. Homosexual priests do not believe in the Catholic faith any more so they shouldn’t be in the Church. I would prefer the bishops to tackle this but, because they are not doing that, we feel it is our duty to let fellow Catholics know what is going on.”
Among those her group has targeted is Father Ed Hone, a parish priest in Edinburgh.
Catholic Truth accused him of inviting a group called Quest, whose members are gay and lesbian Catholics, into his church.
In a series of letters and e-mails to him, Ms McKeever asked him: “Are you a homosexual, Father Hone?”
She went on: “Would you please confirm that you accept wholly the Church’s teaching on homosexual activity . . .? What does ‘pastoral care’ for homosexuals entail? why do homosexuals have to be singled out for special care unlike other sinners who are expected to go regularly to Confession, make a firm determination not to commit serious sins again, pray for purity, etc?”
Father Hone, of St Patrick’s Church in Edinburgh, told The Times: “The Catholic Truth is conducting a witch-hunt. What she [Ms McKeever] is doing is utterly poisonous.”
The newsletter has also accused Father Gerry Livingstone, of St Peter’s Church in Buckie, Aberdeenshire, of attending a reception to celebrate the civil partnership of a gay couple.
Father Livingstone said yesterday: “That is a lie and it is all I am prepared to say on the matter.” Asked whether he had denied the allegations to the Catholic Truth, he added: “I have never communicated with them because I treat them with contempt.”
The first that many hear of Ms McKeever is when a letter – normally sent by recorded delivery – turns up on their doorstep or one of her “researchers” sends an e-mail. She insists that she always gives her subjects a fair hearing, but that is not how her victims see it.
“She is relentless,” said one. “Her whole world vision is to root out what she calls ‘hypocrisy’ but that seems to be any kind of view that differs from her own. Her righteousness exceeds everyone else’s.”
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Glasgow accused Ms McKeever of perpetrating a “medieval witch-hunt”. He said: “ Catholic Truth is a tiny group on the fringe of the Church, utterly unrepresentative of mainstream Catholicism. They are a self-appointed team of heresy hunters, who have made a habit of bombarding the Vatican with ludicrous letters.”
A spokesman for Stonewall, the gay rights group, said: “I would condemn this as a witch-hunt. Being gay should be a barrier to no profession or vocation in life.”
Ms McKeever is believed to live with her mother in Glasgow, but would not confirm this. “It’s not about me, I’m just the editor,” she said. She has never married. She refuses to say which church she goes to, and says only that she attends “the traditional rite of Mass”.
Her newsletter, published bimonthly, claims to have a distribution list of 1,000 readers in Scotland. Its website, however, is seen by scores more.
The Accused
Father Gerry Livingstone of St Peter’s, Buckie, was accused of attending a reception to celebrate the civil partnership of a gay couple. He said: “ That is a lie and it is all I am prepared to say on the matter”
Father Ed Hone works as a parish priest in Edinburgh. Catholic Truth accused him of inviting a group called Quest, whose members are gay and lesbian Roman Catholics, into his church. It claimed that he was “known to be supportive of civil partnerships”.
He said: “ To host a support group for gay people is not a crime in the Catholic Church and would be a normal part of pastoral care”
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