ONE of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s alleged victims yesterday voiced
concern the Vatican is not to put him on trial after his resignation.Scotland’s senior archbishop, Leo Cushley has revealed the Vatican believes O’Brien, who was ordered to leave Scotland, has been punished enough.
The man, who claims he left the priesthood after he was sexually targeted by the cardinal as a trainee priest, is pursuing a civil case against O’Brien and the Catholic Church.
The ex-seminarian, now in his 50s, broke a30-year long silence in March to allege he had been groped and kissed by Cardinal O’Brien in the 80s, at the college where he was studying.
He said the incident had not been a one-off, and his lawyer Cameron Fyfe last night spoke of his client’s sense of “betrayal” regarding the Vatican decision.
He said: “He will be bitterly disappointed at this news. One of the most upsetting things about Keith O’Brien’s behaviour was that throughout his church career, he railed against homosexual behaviour while appearing to indulge in that very same behaviour in his private life.”
The disgraced former Catholic Church leader, 75, who admitted he made sexual advances towards young priests, is still in exile abroad after he was ordered by Pope Francis to pay penance in a monastery.
Archbishop Cushley said it was unlikely O’Brien, formerly Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic, would return to the Scotland.
He added: “Nothing is a lifetime sentence, but it is a reasonable assumption that he will not be coming back in the near future.”
He said: “My impression is Rome has finished with this. They will look into it again after a certain period to see that things are going the way they ought to be going.”