Claims force UK cardinal to step down

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, seen in this April 4, 2010 file photograph, yesterday announced he was stepping down after rejecting allegations on Sunday that he had behaved in an “inappropriate” way with other priests. The Observer newspaper said Cardinal O’Brien, the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who is known for outspoken views on homosexuality, had been reported to the Vatican over allegations of inappropriate behaviour stretching back 30 years. Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

A senior cleric resigned under duress yesterday and Pope Benedict took the rare step of changing Vatican law to allow his successor to be elected early, adding to a sense of crisis within the Roman Catholic Church.

With just three days left before Pope Benedict becomes the first Pope in some six centuries to step down, he accepted the resignation of Britain’s only cardinal elector, Archbishop Keith O’Brien, who was to have voted for the next Pope.

O’Brien, who retains the title of cardinal, has denied allegations that he behaved inappropriately with priests over a period of 30 years, but said he was quitting the job of Archbishop of Edinburgh.

He could have attended the conclave despite his resignation, but said he would stay away because he did not want media attention to be focused on himself instead of the process of choosing the next leader of the 1.2 billion-member Church.

Cardinal O’Brien’s dramatic self-exclusion came as the Vatican continued to resist calls by some Catholics to stop other cardinals tainted by sex scandals, such as US Cardinal Roger Mahony, from taking part.

Catholic activists have petitioned Cardinal Mahony to exclude himself from the conclave so as not to insult survivors of sexual abuse by priests committed while he was archbishop of Los Angeles.

In that post from 1985 until 2011, Cardinal Mahony worked to send priests known to be abusers out of state to shield them from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s, according to church files unsealed under a US court order last month.

“O’Brien’s recusal is also important as a precedent,” said Terence McKiernan, of BishopAccountability.org, a US-based documentation centre on child abuse by priests.

“Many cardinals scheduled to join the conclave have been involved as bishops in handling cases of clergy sexual abuse, and some of them have done such a bad job that they too should recuse themselves from the conclave,” he said.

Pope Benedict changed parts of a 1996 Constitution issued by his predecessor John Paul II so that cardinals could begin a secret conclave to choose a successor earlier than the 15 days after the papacy becomes vacant, as prescribed by the previous law.

The change means that in pre-conclave meetings starting on March 1, a day after Pope Benedict leaves on Thursday, they can themselves decide when to start.

Some cardinals believe a conclave, held in secret in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, should start sooner than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Church will be without a leader at a time of crisis.

But some in the Church believe that an early conclave would give an advantage to cardinals already in Rome and working in the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration and the focus of accusations of ineptitude and alleged sexual scandals that some Italian newspapers speculate in unsourced reports led Benedict to step down. The Vatican says the reports are false.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected by mid-March and installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

Cardinals have begun informal consultations by phone and e­-mail in the past two weeks since Pope Benedict said he was quitting.