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The Archbishop Emeritus of Glasgow, Mario Conti, said Cardinal Keith O’Brien blocked an independent investigation into clerical sex abuse files held by Scottish dioceses.
Cardinal O’Brien, who resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in February after unidentified priests alleged he acted inappropriately toward them, objected to a church review of abuse allegations commissioned in 2011, said Conti said in a letter to the Catholic newspaper The Tablet.
The Tablet quoted Conti saying that all but one member of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland had agreed in recent years for diocesan case files to be reviewed but this did not go ahead due to the cardinal’s objection.
The Catholic Church in Scotland said O’Brien’s withdrawal from the audit of historical sex abuse allegations ended the project.
In a statement the Church said that a decision was taken in 2011 to commission an independent academic analysis of statistics relating to historic abuse from 1952 to 2012. It said that the project ran until 2012, when then president of the Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal O’Brien, withdrew.
Sources
Image: PA/The Telegraph
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