The Requiem Mass of Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien will take place at the Church of St Michael, Westmoreland Road, Newcastle on Thursday 5 April at 1.00pm.
Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols will be the main celebrant and will preach the homily, as requested by the Holy See.
The interment of the late Cardinal's body will then take place at Mount Vernon Cemetery, Edinburgh on 6 April at 1.00pm.
The Cardinal’s body will be laid to rest in the grave of his mother and father, in accordance with wishes expressed by Cardinal O’Brien himself.
It has been requested that any donations are made to SCIAF’s Lenten campaign in lieu of flowers.
Cardinal O’Brien, the retired Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, died early Monday morning at the age of 80.
A leading figure in Scottish Catholicism for decades, the cardinal suffered a dramatic fall from grace when he was accused of sexual misconduct against junior priests and seminarians.
The allegations caused a global media storm as they first surfaced in the days after Benedict XVI’s decision to resign the papacy and as cardinals gathered in Rome for the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis.
As a result of the furore, Cardinal O’Brien announced he would not take part in the papal election, an unprecedented decision by a cardinal whose primary duty is to vote for a new Pope. While cardinals sometimes do not attend conclaves due to ill health, or travel problems, it is unheard of for one to decline voluntarily to participate.
Following his election, Francis commissioned an inquiry into the cardinal’s conduct by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top sex abuse prosecutor, which led to O’Brien renouncing the “rights and duties” of a cardinal in 2015.
Pic: Cardinal Keith O'Brien launches the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF) global poverty lent campaign at the SCIAF office in Glasgow, Scotland in 2013 Picture by: Danny Lawson/PA Archive/PA Images
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