Scotland's cardinal scandal throws a long shadow when the conclave begins

The voting process to choose a new Pope that is going on in Rome will be the second conclave in a row without a cardinal from Scotland.

Experts believe that Scotland, after the last cardinal of the country, Keith O'Brien, is still in the “sin bin” with the Vatican, had to withdraw due to sexual misconduct allegations.

In February 2013, Cardinal O'Brien wanted to take part in the old tradition of choosing a Pope – and his enthusiasm was visible to everyone.

During an interview with BBC Scotland News, he showed the decent brown rectangular voting paper, which is to be used in secret ballot.

But it would stay empty forever.

Cardinal O'Brien, who was the older clergyman of the Catholic Church in Great Britain at the time, had his colleagues to decide who Pope Benedict XVI. Should replace – but he never made it to Rome on the plane.

The 74-year-old Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh resigned days before the conclave after the allegations of the observer newspaper were covered by inappropriate behavior towards priests from the 1980s.

The scandal dissolved the attention of the global media and rocked the Catholic Church at a time when all eyes in Rome's Sistine chapel and the process in which Pope Francis had chosen.

It was a seismic blow for Scotland's prestige in the Catholic Church after decades of the weight that was probably beaten over its weight.

Scotland always had only a handful of cardinals. The Reformation, which led to a restriction of practicing Catholicism of centuries, was largely to blame.

Even when the Catholic Church was officially restored in Scotland in 1878, almost a century had passed before such a appointment was carried out again.

The traditional red cardinal hat was handed over to Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, Gordon Gray. He took part in two implies – August and October 1978, in which the popes of John Paul I and John Paul II.

But Cardinal Grey's crowning moment was in 1982 when Scotland welcomed serving for the first time.

On a roasted summer day, an estimated 300,000 people gathered in Glasgows Bellahuston Park for a papal fair, which was celebrated by John Paul II.

The next cardinal, which was appointed in Scotland, was Thomas winner, a miner son of Wishaw in North Lanarkshire.

He earned the nickname “Cardinal Controver” for his interventions on social issues – including the collision with Prime Minister Tony Blair in Abortion – in 2001, without participating in a consequence.

His replacement was Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who had worked up the hierarchy of the church before he was proclaimed in 2003 by Pope John Paul II.

Cardinal O'Brien took part in the 2005 Conclave, the Pope Benedict XVI. Chose and then five years later the Pope, born in Germany, welcomed to an open-air trade fair in Bellahuston Park in Glasgow.

The clergy born in the county of Antrim, northern Ireland, was on the way to retirement when the scandal, which was to end his career in early 2013.

The observer initially reported on the allegations of four people who accused Cardinal O'Brien of the inappropriate sexual behavior in the diocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh.

The Herald newspaper later suggested that the cardinal used the confession of young clergy as a device for sexual care.

He denied the allegations, but in his declaration of withdrawal there was an oblique indication of the claims.

“I thank God for every good one that I could do. For all mistakes, I apologize to everyone that I have insulted,” he said.

While the church had accepted its resignation from the high office, it made it possible for him to keep his cardinal masination.

After the public spotlight was faded, he initially lived in a retirement home in East Lothian.

He then moved to northeastern England, where he suffered a fall in March 2018 at the age of 80 and later died.

His Requiem trade fair took place in Newcastle and his mortal mortals with his parents were relaxed at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Edinburgh.

Mario I Aguilar, professor of religion and politics at St. Andrews University, who wrote a biography of Pope Francis, says that the Scottish cardinal scandal is still big.

“Scotland has a Peccadillo and that is Cardinal O'Brien,” he says.

“Cardinal O'Brien was the only cardinal in the history of the church that was released, so we have a stain or whatever they want to call it.

“There was a scandal in Rome and therefore they wondered what should do with the Scots.

“It was clear that the Vatican had had enough, and that's why they sent Archbishop Cushley to intervene.”

Leo Cushley was appointed Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh and promised a time of “reconciliation and healing” for Scottish Catholics.

Stephen McGinty, a documentary filmmaker and author of this turbulent priest, a biography of the winning of Cardinal Thomas, agrees that the O'Brien scandal still casts a shadow.

“People forget that at the time he was the highest rank figure in the Catholic Church to be brought into this kind of behavior. It was a world scandal.

“Scotland has a long tradition of Catholicism and until O'Brien was well looked at,” he said.

Mr. McGinty said that the Vatican had given a clear approach when it came to Scotland's cardinal status.

“Cardinal gain was announced that the Vatican's view was that Scotland was separated from England and Wales, so that he should always get a red hat and was shot between Glasgow and Edinburgh, depending on who the older figure had.

“I have no doubt that Scotland will get a red hat in the future, we are only in the sin tank at the moment.”

For the first time in history, fewer than half of the cardinals were coordinated in order to decide who will lead the 1.4 billion Roman Catholic 1.4 billion catholic in the world.

This reflects the fact that the growth areas of the church in Africa and Asia are located.

Professor Aguilar will soon be less optimistic about the prospect of another Scottish cardinal.

He said, “I don't see someone in Scotland, for example, if there are other growing places like in Africa.

“We are a very small country, there are five million Scots and 1.4 billion Catholics – you have to be realistic.”

If the case for the appointment of new cardinals under the next Pope is a game with numbers, Scotland's case is not supported by his declining Catholic population.

The last census showed for the first time that the majority of people in Scotland are not religious.

The change was driven by a sharp decline in the number of people who describe themselves as a church of Scotland or Roman Catholic.

The number of Catholics has been due to more than 117,000 in the past decade and is now 13.3% of the population.

Participation in the fair has also dropped steeply. The annual Catholic directory for Scotland reported that the average weekly mass visit in 1997 was 235,613.

By 2023 this had fallen to 95,029 – part of a downward trend that was assumed that it was accelerated by the Covid panda restrictions.

In the same year there were only 15 Catholic weddings a week in Scotland.

Archbishop Cushley, who became Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in September 2013, was described by Mr. McGinty as a “safe couple of hands”.

After spending most of his career as a diplomat for the Vatican, it may not be surprising that the 63-year-old's term was relatively low and controversial as an archbishop.

However, he was not made a cardinal.

Archbishop Cushley is probably the best chance of holding an election card in future complies – but everything will be on his connection to the next Pope and how long the Vatican takes to forget and forget the “stain” of the O'Brien scandal.