Top civil rights lawyer says she feels ‘huge compassion’ for Cardinal Keith O’Brien
One of Britain’s most senior lawyers has said that she feels a “huge compassion” for Cardinal Keith O’Brien who was accused of sexual misconduct.
Labour peer, Baroness Kennedy, said that it is unnatural to expect priests to remain celibate, and not be troubled by it. She described the requirement of celibacy for Catholic priests as “torture”.
Baroness Kennedy was raised a Catholic herself in Glasgow, which was the same archdiocese represented by Cardinal O’Brien until he resigned last week, reports the Independent.
She said that she disagreed with the fact that he may have acted predatorily but said: “Here was a man who quite clearly had wanted to have a sexual life and felt that it was a failing for him to want to have a sexual life … I feel very sad that it was something he had to in some way bury … I feel very sad for him and for his victims.”
The 74-year-old, former head of the Catholic church in Scotland, who contested the first set of allegations last weekend, resigned as leader of the Scottish Catholic Church last Monday.
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