A lifelong friend of Cardinal Keith O'Brien says that he will challenge any attempt to force the prelate out of Scotland.Fr John Creanor, parish priest of Our Lady of the Waves, Dunbar, the parish where Cardinal O'Brien is currently living, was responding to rumours that the church hierarchy intended to block the cardinal's plan to retire to a church-owned house in the East Lothian town.
He told The Tablet: "I'm prepared, if the rumour is more than just a rumour, to instruct my legal team to challenge the Vatican directly. I'm 72 years old. I have nothing to lose. But I do not accept that the Vatican has the power to exile a retired priest, effectively banish him from the country, or deny him access to a house of which I am the landowner."
He said a petition in the parish had been started urging the cardinal to stay.
The cardinal's resignation of Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh was accepted in February following allegations of sexual impropriety.