I don't the slightest problem with any Catholic priest, let alone a high-ranking official having a long-term relationship with anybody. What are Catholic priests supposed to do...spend their time endlessly masturbating ?
If it keeps them away from the choir boys, boy scouts etc, than I would have thought a long term boyfriend was a splendid idea.
But I have a huge problem with anybody doing one thing and saying another, especially when the latter is done from a position of authority in a pulpit, preaching to a far-from incredulous public.
Cardinal O'Brien is on record, time and time again, for being a serial hypocrite. It is bad enough when hypocrisy comes from an ordinary member of the public but O'Brien was far from being ordinary in any sense of the word. He was a person that many others looked up to, for moral and spiritual guidance. If someone had not blown the whistle just in time, he would have been walled up in the Vatican, together with all the other
be-costumed travesties, in that ludicrous D'oyly Carte-like production, that picking a new pope involves.
As soon as the Church uses some common sense and allows the priesthood to have some sex, either in or out of a formal marriage the better.
It is not enough to keep shouting the mantra that "we know best" They don't know what is best for themselves, let alone the rest of society.