Quote of the Day: Cardinal Keith O'Brien

I'll wait while regular readers are picking their jaws up off their keyboards as have in fact just awarded the irregularly presented Quote of the Day on this blog to the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. For this:

"In many states - more than half - they kill the perpetrators of horrible crimes, by lethal injection or even firing squad - I say that is a culture of vengeance.

"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - that is not our culture in Scotland and I would like to think that the US government, and these states that do still have capital punishment, would learn something from us."

It is in response to the USA attitude to the release of the Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. It is quite a courageous stance for a Church leader to remind the nation that has "In God We Trust" on its currency to remember the teaching of the Sermon of the Mount and pull them out of the Old Testament vengeful tendency. So his is to applauded for his stance and his backing of the stance not to sent Parliamentarians from the UK or Scotland to stand before a US committee he added:

"The Scottish government has made the decision and the Scottish government is answerable to the Scottish people - not the US government or US citizens.

"Everyone acted according to Scots law in releasing Megrahi on compassionate grounds, having taken medical advice.

"I still think they did the right thing, although the man is still alive.

"We shouldn't be crawling out to America, or having them come here and questioning us on our own territory."