Days after pulling out of the conclave to elect the next pope and vowing to fight the charges against him, disgraced Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien admitted on March 3 to inappropriate “sexual conduct.”
O’Brien, who until his resignation was the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric in England and Scotland, had served as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh for the last seven years and was made a cardinal in 2003.
After a week of turmoil among Scotland’s 700,000 Catholics, the cardinal said in a statement released by the Scottish Catholic Media Office in Glasgow that “there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”
