A SENIOR aide to the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, resigned yesterday after a series of allegations in the media about his private life, including a report about a girlfriend who had had an abortion.

Austen Ivereigh, who is single and was, until yesterday, the Cardinal’s director for public affairs, has never denied that a girlfriend had an abortion while he was a student at Oxford. He was not a practising Catholic at the time, and the episode is understood to have prompted his return to the faith. After a relationship with a more recent girlfriend ended, it was reported that she had been pregnant, but had miscarried twins.

Dr Ivereigh, 40, who has often spoken in support of the Catholic Church’s stance against abortion, is taking legal action over some of the reporting. He was educated at Worth Abbey, a public school in West Sussex, run by Benedictine monks. He rebelled as a teenager but, after rediscovering his faith, became such a committed Catholic that he considered becoming a monk. He worked in a senior post at the Catholic publication The Tablet, before joining the cardinal’s staff.

He said yesterday: “When I represent the Church’s teaching on abortion there is no hypocrisy on my part. I do so not just with sincerity but from experience. To say that abortion is the taking of human life is not to condemn anyone who has had one.”

He continued: “We who speak on behalf of the Church, on behalf of Christ, we are not qualified to do so, we are not worthy to do so. We do so because faith is a gift.”

Dr Ivereigh declined to comment on any of his relationships but insisted that he was not guilty of any hypocrisy on abortion. He said that he was resigning “as a result of persistent and untrue reports about my private life”.

He continued: “The decision, which has been my own, was taken in order to avoid further distractions from the Cardinal’s crucial role as Archbishop of Westminster.”

He said that he was grateful for the “compassionate and wise guidance” he had received from the cardinal. Dr Ivereigh added: “Throughout my time at Archbishop’s House, and especially in recent weeks, I have been humbled by the witness to the gospel given to me by so many Catholics. I will continue to serve the Church in any way I can.”

The episode has cast further doubt over the future of the Cardinal, who will offer his resignation to the Pope on his 75th birthday in August next year, in line with canon law. It is usual practice for the Pope to ask senior prelates who are in good health to stay on but there is growing speculation that he will allow Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor to retire.

The episode is the third to embarrass the Cardinal since he moved to Westminster in 2000. In May this year, the Cardinal faced accusations of hypocrisy from gay rights groups after it emerged that in 2003 he had dismissed his press secretary, who was gay.

Soon after his appointment to Westminster the Cardinal survived calls for his resignation after it emerged that in 1985 he had appointed Father Michael Hill as chaplain at Gatwick, knowing him to be a paedophile. Father Hill was jailed in 1997 and again in 2002 for sex attacks on young boys. Several of the offences occurred after his appointment. The Cardinal later admitted that he had made a mistake.

This month, the Cardinal came under increasing pressure from leading bishops over his refusal to sack Dr Ivereigh, who joined his staff in 2004.

The Cardinal said last night: “I want to put on record my sincere thanks to Austen for all he has done on my behalf and for the Church in the past year and a half. I wish him well in the future.”

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