"In My Father's House"

This is your weekly reminder that there has been a liberal coup in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. See also this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this. At least in the public sphere, I alone have fought back. I have done so to the cusp of the victory of which we have now had a foretaste. Where is Carol Lawrence's report? And where is this month's edition of the Northern Cross?

It does not take five months to decide whether or not to make an arrest pursuant to one allegation of sexual assault by an adult against another adult, and all rumours as to what Bishop Robert Byrne CO was now doing presuppose that he holds an Enhanced DBS check, which he certainly would not hold if he were subject to such a Police investigation, or probably if he ever had been.

In any case, even Pat Buckley has downgraded the alleged allegation to one of having been "sexually inappropriate", whatever that may mean. An off-colour remark? What, exactly? Although even that could imperil an Enhanced DBS check. If anything, a man who had been asked to leave the Oratory 30 years ago set out for revenge but had his bogus claim rightly dismissed. Even that, though, has not been established.

What has been established is that there has never been a Police investigation into His Lordship. He should now sue every media outlet that had suggested that there was one. An Oratorian does not take a vow of poverty, and the English Oratories have friends who could afford any lawyer in London. I alone have publicly defended Bishop Byrne. I have done so from the very start.