Scottish cardinal to atone for sexual misconduct

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Scottish cardinal who resigned as archbishop after admitting to sexual misconduct will leave Scotland for several months of prayer and atonement, the Vatican said Wednesday in a rare sign of accountability for a "prince of the church."

Cardinal Keith O'Brien recused himself from the March conclave that elected Francis as the new pope after a newspaper reported unnamed priests' allegations that he acted inappropriately toward them. There have been no indications that the priests were minors at the time.

O'Brien subsequently acknowledged he had engaged in unspecified sexual misbehavior. He resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, apologized and promised to stay out of the church's public life.

On Wednesday, the Vatican said O'Brien, once Britain's highest-ranking Catholic leader, would leave Scotland for several months of "prayer, penance and spiritual renewal" for the same reasons he decided not to participate in the conclave.

The statement didn't say if the arrangements were imposed on O'Brien by the Vatican as a punishment, or if he had volunteered for them. The Vatican said merely that his departure came "in agreement with the Holy Father." The Vatican spokesman declined to provide further explanation and the spokesman for the Scottish church didn't respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

The distinction is significant because victims of clerical abuse have long denounced the lack of accountability among the church hierarchy for having covered up the crimes of pedophile priests: In the church, bishops, and even more so cardinals, often seem virtually untouchable.

Even though O'Brien is not accused of abusing minors, his case has been watched to see if Pope Francis would take any action against a member of the church elite. The Vatican, for example, has refused to even confirm whether it was investigating the allegations against O'Brien.

O'Brien initially rejected the claims, saying he was resigning because he did not want to distract from the conclave. In staying home, O'Brien became the first cardinal ever to recuse himself from a conclave because of personal scandal.

He eventually issued a statement admitting that there had been times "that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

It wasn't clear what would happen to O'Brien after his months of prayer. The Vatican statement said merely that a decision would be "agreed with the Holy See."

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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Biden Jokes 'I'll Lose My Soul' If He Misses Cardinal Reception

Vice President Joe Biden joked today that his soul might be in jeopardy if he misses a scheduled reception with the U.S. Cardinals in Rome.

"We invited the American cardinals to a reception," Biden told Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic during a bilateral meeting today, according to the print pool reports. "So unless I'm prepared to join the Eastern Orthodox Church, as a Roman Catholic, I'd better show up or I'll lose my soul."

The vice president, who is the highest-ranking Roman Catholic politician in the United States, is in Rome leading the presidential delegation, which includes House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Gov. Susana Martinez, R-N.M., for the Inaugural Mass of Pope Francis.

The vice president and the presidential delegation will attend a reception this evening with the U.S. cardinals, members of Congress and officials from the U.S. embassies to Rome and the Holy See and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome.

Biden held additional bilateral meetings earlier today with the presidents of Poland and Italy, as well as the Italian prime minister.

While meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, Biden joked about how swiftly the cardinals selected a new pope, a feat he said would not be possible in U.S. politics.

"I didn't realize you'd arrange for a new pope so quickly," Biden joked to Napolitano.

"They are quicker than Italian politics," Napolitano replied.

"They're quicker than American politics," Biden said smiling.

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Vietnam cardinal arrives, last 1 in for conclave

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The last cardinal who will participate in the conclave to elect the next pope arrived in Rome on Thursday, meaning a date can now be set for the election. One U.S. cardinal said a decision on the start date is expected soon.

Some American and other cardinals had said they wanted to continue the pre-conclave meetings that have been going on all week for as long as it takes so they can discern who among them has the stuff to be pope and discuss the problems of the church.

Some Vatican-based cardinals, defensive about criticisms of the Vatican's internal governance that have been aired recently, seemed to want to get on with the vote arguing there's no reason to delay.

"Hopefully it will be a short conclave and start very soon," Vatican-based German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes was quoted Wednesday as telling the German daily Bild. "I would compare it with a visit to the dentist — you want to get everything over with quickly."

Thursday afternoon, U.S. Cardinal Roger Mahony tweeted that the discussions were "reaching a conclusion."

"Setting of date for conclave nearing. Mood of excitement prevails among Cardinals," he wrote.

Once the conclave starts, there is very little time for discussion. Cardinals take two votes in the morning, two votes in the afternoon — all of them conducted in silent prayer, not chatter, amid the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. As a result, setting the date for the start of the conclave is akin to setting the deadline for when pre-conclave deliberations will finish.

These discussions are designed to give cardinals a chance to get to know one another better and dive into the problems confronting the church and who among them is best suited to fix them.

On Thursday, for example, cardinals received a briefing on the Holy See's finances amid questions about the administration of the Vatican bureaucracy and continued suspicions about the Vatican bank.

As such, "it seems very normal and very wise" to wait to set the conclave date until all cardinals are confident that they're nearing an end to their deliberations, said the Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

The arrival in Rome on Thursday of Vietnamese Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man, however, signaled at least that a vote could be taken on a start date now that all 115 cardinal electors are in place.

He entered the Vatican auditorium for Thursday's afternoon session without speaking to reporters. No vote on a conclave date was taken, Lombardi said.

For the fourth day in a row, discussions on Thursday included questions about the Holy See's administration and its relationships with dioceses around the world amid complaints that the Holy See doesn't communicate well, internally or externally.

The problems of the Holy See's internal governance have been a constant theme of deliberations this week as cardinals — especially from the United States — have sought information about allegations of corruption, turf wars and cronyism that were exposed by the leaks of papal documents last year.

Lombardi said the financial briefing by the heads of the Vatican's economic affairs office, the administration of the Vatican City State, and the department overseeing the Holy See's assets and personnel was designed to give the cardinals an early peek at the Holy See's financial reports, which usually come out in July.

Such a financial briefing is called for by the rules governing the period between papacies, specifically to give the cardinals a full picture of the state of the Holy See.

Lombardi refused to comment when asked if the Vatican's bank, the Institute for Religious Works, was discussed. The bank, which was created to administer the pope's works of charity, has long been the focus of scandal for the Vatican, though it has tried to clean up its reputation by submitting itself to an evaluation by the Council of Europe's Moneyval committee.

Moneyval, which helps governments adhere to internationally recognized anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing norms, gave the Holy See a passing grade in its first evaluation last summer. But the bank received poor or failing grades on a number of fronts, with its rules on customer due diligence, wire transfers and suspicious transaction reporting declared insufficient.

This week, the widely read Italian Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, which is distributed free in Italian parishes each Sunday, carried an article calling for the bank to be closed on the ground that the pontificate shouldn't have direct links to the world of finance.

It argued that there are plenty of ethically minded commercial banks in Italy and elsewhere that could be trusted to manage the Holy See's assets.

"Total transparency would thus be assured and the faithful, who continue to generously donate, would know that their money given to the church ... is destined to the poor," said the article penned by historian Giorgio Campanini.

For a magazine representing the Catholic establishment in Italy to make such a call is significant, given the deference usually paid to the Holy See by the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country.

That said, the Vatican bank has been the source of bitter battles in recent times between the Holy See and the Bank of Italy, which doesn't have regulatory control over the bank and has taken measures to strangle its financial activities in Italy.

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Gay group calls for apology from Scottish cardinal

LONDON (AP) — A Scottish cardinal who stepped down from church leadership after admitting sexual misconduct should apologize to gay people for his years of "vicious and cruel language" about them, Britain's leading gay-rights group said Monday.

Officials in the Vatican refused to say whether they would formally investigate allegations against Cardinal Keith O'Brien. He resigned last week as Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric after being accused of inappropriate behavior by three priests and a former priest.

Until his abrupt resignation as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, O'Brien had been due to join cardinals from around the world in Rome for a conclave that will elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

The cardinals met Monday, without O'Brien, for the first of their pre-conclave meetings.

O'Brien has not directly addressed the allegations against him, which include "an inappropriate approach" to a seminarian after night prayers and "inappropriate contact" with another priest.

But he said Sunday that "my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

"To those I have offended, I apologize and ask forgiveness," he said.

Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill said Monday that the gay-rights group noted "with sadness that the cardinal didn't find it in him to apologize to gay people, their families and friends for the harm his vicious and cruel language caused."

The Scottish Catholic Media Office said the complaints against O'Brien had been reported to the Vatican, and it expected there would be an investigation.

The Vatican refused to confirm or deny Monday whether it was investigating O'Brien, and declined to say when it learned of the allegations against him. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, repeated his statement from last week, which was that the original four accusers had sent their complaint via the papal ambassador to Britain, and the pope had been informed.

Pressed to respond to reports of a purported fifth accuser, who reportedly approached the Vatican directly in October with accusations, another spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, read O'Brien's statement and said the Vatican would say no more.

O'Brien, 74, had been a staunch advocate of church teaching against homosexuality, calling same-sex marriage "a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right" and saying that British government plans to legalize same-sex marriage would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world."

Last year, Stonewall named O'Brien "Bigot of the Year" for his hard line on homosexuality.

Despite his views on same-sex relationships, O'Brien was long known for his relatively liberal stance on some social issues.

Shortly after he was named cardinal in 2003, O'Brien made an unusual public pledge to defend Roman Catholic Church teaching, having previously suggested there should be more open discussion on issues such as the requirement of celibacy for priests and the church's ban on contraception.

The cardinal largely kept those views to himself over the next decade, although he reiterated them in an interview with the BBC just before the allegations against him emerged. O'Brien told the broadcaster that he was open to priests marrying and having children.

"The celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry — Jesus didn't say that," he said in the interview last month. "When I was a young boy, the priest didn't get married and that was it. I would be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should get married."

Another British cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said Monday that the claims against O'Brien weren't necessarily evidence that the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church — which has been wracked by scandals over sexual abuse by priests — was in need of deep reform.

"There's always been sinners in the church but there's always been saints," he told BBC radio from Rome.

Murphy-O'Connor — who, at 80, is too old to vote in the conclave — said that while sometimes wrongdoing was the responsibility of the church, "sometimes it is just the weakness of individuals and the wrong that they do."

"To say that this is all in the church, I just don't think it is true," he said.

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Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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Accused Scottish cardinal admits sexual failings

LONDON (AP) — The cardinal who until recently served as Britain's highest-ranking Catholic leader has admitted to unspecified sexual misbehavior and promised to play "no further part" in the public life of the church.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien resigned Monday from his position as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh after a newspaper published accounts alleging that priests had accused him of misconduct.

O'Brien initially rejected the claims, saying he was resigning because he did not want to distract from the upcoming conclave which is due to pick a new pope.

But on Sunday the Church of Scotland issued a statement quoting O'Brien as saying that there had been times "that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

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