Each Sunday we hear: "Let us now call to mind our sins", and I duly do so. In this contemplation, Sarah, Duchess of York, has proved to be a helpful prompt. "Isn't she awful?" cry the tabloids. "Isn't she greedy, selfishly extravagant, feckless, lustful, and a shame to the royal family? Cut her off! Banish her, along with her disgraced husband!"
Gloatingly, her sins and misdemeanours are recounted over and over. Most recently, she is charged, at the bar of public opinion, with hypocrisy and mendacity. She told the Evening Standard that she had cut all ties with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but subsequently, it has been revealed, she addressed him in messages as "a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family".
She said she was only "disowning" him for show, to protect her commercial interests. She really appreciated him so much and sympathised with the ordeals he'd been through. The words of St Paul come to mind: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Fergie, it seems, sought the financier's friendship because he provided cash, and the aura of cash. A paltry £15,000 has been admitted, but Andrew Lownie, biographer of Prince Andrew, reckons the duchess has benefited to the tune of about £2 million. Avarice!
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, said recently that she suspected Fergie "put the moves" on him – that she fancied this terrible fellow, known to have trafficked young girls for sexual favours. Lust and vanity combined, surely.
Fergie's extravagance has become legendary: the time she spent $25,000 in one hour shopping at New York's Bloomingdale's: the time she tried to sell an introduction to Prince Andrew for £500,000; how she was surrounded by 17 members of staff, including a cook, driver, maid, butler, dresser, nanny, three secretaries, a personal assistant, two gardeners, a flower arranger and dog walker while running up £5 million in debt. How she insisted on daily deliveries of her favourite wine – Puligny-Montrachet at £60 a bottle. And then there was the ill-judged affair, repeatedly revisited, with an American financial adviser, who was photographed sucking the duchess's toes.
Fergie puts me in mind of my own convent school career: the naughtiest girl in the school in trouble again! So each time she falls into disgrace, I reflect how shaming and mortifying it must be for her to be in the public stocks like this.
In her latest public shaming, the charities she has been associated with have dropped her. From Prevent Breast Cancer to the children's charity Julia's House a hospice supporting children all seven have issued statements saying it would be inappropriate for her name to be further linked with their cause. Charities associated with children and young people, such as the Teenage Cancer Trust, feel, understandably, that their first duty is to protect the interests of young people, rather than support the Duchess of York. After all, Jeffrey Epstein's victims were very young people.
Poor Fergie. She's a complete bloody fool. And although thankfully, by the grace of God, my errors and misjudgements aren't quite on the same scale, and thankfully, again are not as visibly public or significant, I can't help thinking of the missteps in my own life when Sarah's are paraded before the world. I've often been a complete bloody fool, too. Spending £300 on a handbag, as I once did, mightn't be in a similar category, but it springs from the same weakness – vanity, and pride.
And God help her, silly though she is, she has tried to turn her hand to an honest day's work every now and again. She wrote (with a collaborator) a couple of historical novels: I read one of them, Her Heart for a Compass, and I'm bound to say, I've read worse. She's done a children's book which had a certain success. She made a sporting attempt at becoming a morning-TV host, although giving poor families lessons in how to budget for meals didn't seem quite the right fit. She also continually defended her ex-husband, Andrew. Here, I think of a straying wife I once heard say: "I'm not faithful, but I'm loyal."
Through the narrative of Fergie's gaffes, the popular media has speculated about her chances of "redemption" – by which they mean, not the saving of souls, but the readmission to public, media and royal favour. Now it seems to have been decided that there can be no redemption.
Sometimes the cry goes up that Fergie and Andrew should no longer be permitted to appear at church, be it at Christmas or for a family funeral. We live in an era when it isn't really understood that church is exactly where sinners are admitted, even welcomed.
We are told that on the Last Day, our sins will be proclaimed from the rooftops. Some of us are grateful that such a disclosure will be deferred to the Day of Judgement. For Sarah, Duchess of York, the process is being enacted right now. She's a fool, but other foolish ones may retain a certain sympathy for her.
Photo: Sarah, Duchess of York (by Arcadia)
Mary Kenny is a journalist and broadcaster
This article appears in the October/November 2025 edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre and counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door any where in the world click HERE.
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