When asked if Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien’s death on Monday had made his many failings null and void, a wiser philosopher than I replied: “Did his sins negate his life’s work?” The Cardinal died peacefully on Monday morning – two days after his 80th birthday on St Patrick’s Day – after a fall. It was not the first time he had fallen.

The Northern Irishman’s legacy is difficult to weigh. When Cardinal O’Brien stepped down from public life in 2013, after admitting inappropriate conduct, he left the Scottish hierarchy to pick up the pieces of his broken promise of celibacy, his alleged bullying and abuse of power, his combative and judgemental language on homosexuality and what many saw as his hypocrisy.