Doing time with his jailhouse flock is never a Cardinal sin
Dec 04, 2005
Not a word to the Pope about this but, I can exclusively reveal, Cardinal Keith O'Brien has done time. And on his own doorstep, in Saughton. I've got it on record.
(news.scotsman.com, 1st December 2005) It was the Cardinal's best-kept secret, until I heard the confession in a one-to-one with him at his Church Hill home. Enough to shrivel the beads on a rosary.
One of the joys of newspapers is that you just never know when you'll stumble on a story. This mind-blowing revelation resulted from a relatively innocent house call, inquiring after Keith's welfare as I do from time to time.
Plan A was to catch him on October 21, two years to the day since he had become a cardinal. A business meeting clashed with our proposed meet. Plan B was to re-convene, only if he felt up to it. He had his flu jab just hours earlier. He was up for it all right. To the extent that he poured me a welcoming cuppa in front of a flaming fire and proffered a slab of his housekeeper's fruit cake.
The ongoing panic-inducing headlines about a bird flu pandemic hadn't phased him at all. Wouldn't he be seen from on high as a special case? "Not at all. I'll get what everybody catches."
I've never known him to be anything other than healthy which is surprising considering his frequent trips to disease-ridden countries in the name of his church. Somebody up there must be looking after him. But this sensational Saughton thing, your eminence, why are you for telling us now about your porridge stint? "By all means, I've nothing to hide. I was in the jail dedicating a new chapel yesterday afternoon with Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Episcopal Bishop and the Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland Assembly when the prison alert sounded.
"The prisoners were locked in their cells and we were locked in the chapel while a search was on for an absconding prisoner - the bloke who, I believe, is known as the Naked Rambler. He'd climbed a pole, naked, to make a protest.
"Did we feel we were in danger? Not at all. We all felt quite safe while he was persuaded to come down. The guards had been nice to us. We were treated to tea and German biscuits."
Nothing but kindness everywhere he goes. If he's not receiving it, he's generating it. So have two years as cardinal changed him as a person? "I don't think so. I wouldn't want to think so. I'm not aware within myself of a personality change. Being made an archbishop in 1985 - my parents came over to St Peter's Basilica in Rome for the occasion - was, I suppose, character-forming in itself.
"Obviously, to have been made a cardinal was a great privilege and to have participated in the burial of a Pope and then, as one of 115 men responsible for the election of a new one, was a privilege I never dreamt I'd have.
"To answer your question, though . . . you'd have to ask people if they feel I've changed."
This Pope, Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, once known as God's rottweiler and an ageing reactionary . . . how does our man perceive him? "I feel he is defying his critics in the way he is fulfilling his role. I'm more than impressed in what he has said in a pastoral way since his selection.
"The Pope has to be like the Good Shepherd. The first Pope was a fisherman who had to launch out into the deep and get a catch, and there's a certain symbolism there in that we have a sea of secularism and materialism surrounding us today. Too often and too widely there is no great regard for God, more for wealth and bettering yourself."
I am seeing before me one of His Holiness' right-hand men in rude health, as I say, although, with housekeeper Teresa around to pamper him, he does seem to take good care of himself. He is relaxing by the fire in a maroon cardigan, red socks and slippers. What's with the red socks?
"Red socks have been in the papers a lot lately. Wasn't Sir Christopher Meyer, formerly our ambassador in Washington, taken to task for wearing them on TV when he was interviewed about his controversial book?
"I wear them a lot because I've got plenty - they match the red Cardinal's cassock. They're obligatory. Part of the uniform."
Accordingly, we can mark his card sartorially speaking. Next time you're in menswear in Marks & Sparks and see a chap buying a job lot of red sock, chances are it will be none other. "It's not quite like that, John. There's a shop in Rome that traditionally caters for cardinals. They measure you up for everything when you're elected and you simply re-order when you run out."
He never seems to run out of places to go, places to spread the Roman Catholic Church's gospel. Life-threatening places. In October it was Nigeria. And come mid-January he'll be in Darfur, a hell on Earth in Sudan. March will see him Ethiopia.
"I can be of some help in such trouble spots, I like to think. There's little point in me sunbathing by the Med."
Surely he risks trouble from critics within his flock for travelling the world while all's far from tickety-boo at home? "You have a point. Congregations are still thinning here, it's true. I want to believe they are levelling out now but the shortage of priests is a continuing worry. We are getting help from abroad - I have two Polish priests, one who's looking after Livingston in my diocese - coming to see me today. The number of Catholics coming to Scotland from eastern Europe is significant.
"While trips abroad can last up to a couple of weeks or more, what's happening on the home front is forever my concern. This morning I was in the new St Peter's Primary for a mass at 9.30 for primary one, two and three pupils, and at 11am for primary four to seven pupils.
"Yesterday I was at St Matthew's Primary in Rosewell, dedicating the new school badge. And at Saughton they were saying I should pay a visit before long to Cornton Vale, the women's prison."
He should be all right for a German biscuit there.
It was damn parky outside, the snow-flecked wind from the Pentlands seemed to be making a beeline for his front door, but I've yet to get a girn rather than a grin out of Cardinal Keith.
"You're going to be pushed to pin a grumpy-old-man tag on me. Not yet. Give me time. I'm enjoying life too much to get grumpy about anything." He'll be 68 on St Patrick's Day.
Would it be forgivable if I nicked another piece of fruitcake on my way out? "Help yourself! Try that piece, it's got a cherry in it."
Heart murmer which almost stopped a church career in its infancy
CARDINAL KEITH O'BRIEN was born in Ballycastle on the north-east coast of Northern Ireland on March 17, 1938.
As a child, he moved to Clydebank with his family, and then on to Edinburgh when he was still at secondary school. He always wanted to become a priest, but a heart murmur led to his rejection as a candidate for junior seminary. The then Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh later insisted O'Brien complete university to assess if his health would hold. He eventually won a place at the Archdiocesan Seminary of St Andrews College, Drygrange, Roxburghshire.
He was finally ordained in 1965 and from then until 1978 served congregations in Edinburgh, Cowdenbeath, Kilsyth and Bathgate before he was made Spiritual Director at Drygrange. In 1980 he was appointed rector of the National Junior Seminary St Mary's College, Blairs, Aberdeen, before he was ordained Archbishop in 1985.
After Cardinal Gordon Gray's death, O'Brien was suggested as a replacement, but the post went to Thomas Winning. It was after Winning's death that O'Brien was appointed Scotland's Cardinal two years ago.
Doing time with his jailhouse flock is never a Cardinal sin