VERSION|0.5.1|SUBJECT|Blairs College and the Scottish Catholic Gay Mafia|CONTENT|[url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130428.html][img=images/2013/04/pic130428.jpg popup=false float=right][/url]The Vatican [url=http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/obrien-scandal-vatican-calls-halt-to-new-bishops.20926834]is still investigaing[/url] the Keith O&#039;Brien story. They say there will be no new episcopal appointments in Scotland until the Vatican &quot;gets to the bottom&quot; of what&#039;s been going on there.

The story mentions this [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Priesthood-In-Crisis-ebook/dp/B00BWADFD6]self published book[/url] by Father Mathew Despard. The comments section on Amazon had several references to my old school, Blairs College in Aberdeen, which used to be the national junior seminary for Scotland. £5.15 seemed a bit steep for a Kindle only edition, but having downloaded and read it, I don&#039;t begrudge him the money. He may well be unemployed soon and could well find himself facing multiple lawsuits.

Most conspiracy theorists talk in terms of anonymous individuals and mysterious hidden organisations. Fr Despard doesn&#039;t, he sprays accusations at named individuals like a machine gun. 

The book itself is quite curious. It starts off describing how a relatively minor dispute between Fr Despard and one of his parishoners has blown up into a full scale disciplinary hearing where he might end up being removed from the priesthood.

This is where the story gets interesting. Despard&#039;s thesis is that the Diocese of Motherwell has been trying to get rid of him for years. He doesn&#039;t fit in. Why doesn&#039;t he fit in? Because he&#039;s straight.

The book claims that O&#039;Brien was just the tip of the iceberg and that promotion in the Scottish Catholic hierarchy depends critically on your sexuality. Those who don&#039;t join in the fun and games are considered &quot;not one of us&quot;, or as it is euphemistically put, &quot;not a team player.&quot;

Despard recalls numerous instances of sexual bullying. Everywhere he goes, priests have fellow priests or toy boys as lovers. They even wear rings to indicate to other priests that they are spoken for. There is open flirting between priests in front of their parishoners. 

In one incident he describes one of my old teachers making a rather agressive pass at him in the parochial house. When this was forcefully rejected, the other priest responds with the words “So, it’s true about you! Well, don’t worry, Despard. We’ll soon sort you out. You’ll not last long.&quot;

The thing that Despard thinks ties a lot of this together is Blairs College. Despard didn&#039;t go to Blairs. He became a priest in Scotland via a quite different route. He considers himself an outsider since the whole of the current Scottish hierarchy either studied, taught or were rectors at Blairs. He seems to think that this was the central hub of the Scottish Catholic gay mafia. 

I spent a couple of years at Blairs in the 1970s. If it was a hotbed of homosexual orgies then certainly no one ever invited me, but then I was always last to get picked for the football team as well. One of the reasons I left was because I was gay and didn&#039;t think there would be any place for me in the priesthood. Ironically, if Despard is correct, not only would I have fitted in perfectly, I might even have my pointy hat by now with a nice little gay diocese all of my own!

He also casts aspersions on the former Bishop of Aberdeen, Peter Moran. He too was one of my teachers at Blairs, and a more intelligent, witty and honest man you could never hope to meet. When Blairs finally closed, he stayed on as parish priest and caretaker, living alone in a huge complex of buildings for a decade. A lesser man would have been driven insane by the task. Despard words it slightly differently,

[blockquote]There is Bishop of Aberdeen. He, too, was on the staff at Blairs and, indeed, when Blair’s was closed he stayed in, refusing to leave, protesting at the closure. He wanted to say on there. He was part of a hard, ruling clique and did not want to see the college lose its status.[/blockquote]

[img=images/blairs500.jpg popup=false]

This rather harsh, uncharitable view of a man he didn&#039;t even know, makes me wonder about much of what Despard has to say.

The book ends with a long, tedious rant about homosexuals, liberals and moral relativism. How loss of faith in Catholicism leads to communism (forgetting that Russia is the preserve of the Orthodox Church) or Nazism (forgetting the Catholic church&#039;s collusion with the Nazis until they realised just how dangerous they were).

He flaps about in a panic, completely unable to understand the increasingly secular world that he finds himself in. He struggles to understand why so many Catholics desert the faith and explores everything except the possibility that they just find his beliefs silly.

I have no idea if there really is a Gay Mafia running the Catholic Church in Scotland. I do know that Fr Despard&#039;s book is going to receive a lot of attention in  the months to come. It should all be extremely entertaining.|CATEGORIES|11|IP-ADDRESS|94.168.119.214|CREATEDBY|admin|DATE|1367138188