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	The Catholic Church Is out of Touch with Modern Scotland By Kevin McKenna The Observer December 5, 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/dec/05/catholic-church-pope-hugh-dallas Some people are born victims; others though, seek victimhood, and when they find it they cling to it. Like Tam O'Shanter's wife, Kate, "gathering her brows like gathering storm, nursing her wrath to keep it warm", they remain vigilant and alert to any evidence of scurrility. Last week, Peter Kearney, the director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, penned an incendiary article in which he excoriated Scotland for being a nation where Catholics continue to suffer "deep, wide and vicious hostility". Mr Kearney, an otherwise reasonable and skilled media operator, was responding to the forced resignation of Hugh Dallas, the head of referee development at the Scottish Football Association. Mr Dallas, a former FIFA referee, had been found to have passed on a ribald and satirical picture email about the Pope on the occasion of his visit to Scotland on 16 September. Previously, Mr Kearney had called on the SFA to sack Dallas after implying that the organisation had been dilatory in pursuing its investigation into the email affair. This is when I began to feel distinctly queasy for the blood was high, the night was clear, the crosses were burning brightly and a good old witch-hunt was underway. There can be no doubt that Kearney had made his demand fortified by the authority of the Catholic church in Scotland. As such, it was only a matter of time before Dallas would be forced out. I am a practising Catholic, who still feels the urge to genuflect when there is incense, candles and the glimpse of a lacy black mantilla. I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. But I also believe that the church is nothing if it does not also offer forgiveness, charity, compassion and the hope of redemption. In its treatment of Hugh Dallas, the Catholic church displayed none of these. He was given no opportunity to redeem himself with an apology or defend himself through an appeal in mitigation. The Catholic church took no account of the fact that his future ability to earn a good living will be grievously compromised for having been publicly found guilty of the dread sin of anti-Catholicism. The effect on his wife and children does not appear to have diluted the wrath of Rome. His mildly injudicious act has met with a punishment that is not condign and, indeed, is utterly disproportionate to the original transgression. Having duly received the head of Dallas on a plate, the church, through Kearney's article, obviously felt conditions were ripe to press home her advantage. The email, according to Kearney, may "simply be the tip of a disturbing iceberg of anti-Catholicism in Scottish society". It has caused Catholics in Scotland to draw "a line in the sand". It has done no such thing. A line in the sand is what General William Travis drew in 1836 when his few hundred Americans were defending the besieged fort at the Alamo against Santa Anna's 10,000-strong Mexican army. The Spartans did it in 480BC when about to be overwhelmed by the Persians at Thermopylae. The Catholic church in Scotland is not in a state of siege. In fact, its response conveys more about the state of the church than it does about the state of Scottish society. Quite simply, the Scotland portrayed in the Kearney memorandum is not the Scotland that I and many of my fellow Catholics recognise. When set against the febrile and tumultuous history of Europe and the movements of its peoples since the dawn of the 20th century, the rise of the Irish Catholic population in Scotland is nothing short of astonishing. Little more than a century has passed since the end of the largest of the Irish diasporas to this country. Lowland, urban Scotland, already poor, found a large and unskilled population on its doorstep, itself needful of what little state benefits there were and carrying with them the old and still despised Roman faith. The ingredients and conditions for widespread and violent civil unrest were painfully present. In Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Russia, there were regular pogroms of Jews, Turks, Muslims, Slavs and gypsies. Hundreds of thousands of people died or were left homeless because of state-sponsored racism across Europe. That it didn't happen in Scotland is almost miraculous and says something good about the tolerance of the indigenous Presbyterian population and its civil and church leaders. Even when this cultural detente was tested by the late 20th century manifestation of the Irish problem, the state of peace and harmony stayed largely firm. Within two generations, Irish Catholics, whose parents and grandparents had arrived here with nothing, were beginning to alter the professional landscape of Scotland. By the end of the 20th century, Catholics have risen to the top in the law, the judiciary, trade unionism, party politics and journalism. State-funded Catholic education remains, as the last two first ministers of Scotland have averred, the "jewel in Scotland's educational crown". Throughout this time, the vivid and rough hostility to Irish Catholicism has waned to such an extent that last month the Orange Order was told to reduce drastically the number of annual parades it holds and Rangers FC are aggressively pursuing an inclusive agenda among the more "traditional" of their supporters. The Catholic church in Scotland should be embracing the challenges of the 21st century with confidence and as equal partners in shaping the destiny of our nation. Sadly, there are still many in the church who regard valid criticism of its teachings and its conduct as tantamount to sectarianism. There is a loose alliance of shrill Catholic evangelicals and pious ecclesiasticals who are beginning to hold sway in my church. Many have shown themselves to be intellectually incapable of defending the precepts of their faith in the marketplace of ideas that post-devolution Scotland seeks to foster. When there is reasonable opposition to the Pope's visit and a justifiable outcry over child sex abuse they retreat into their novenas, benedictions and prayer meetings and mutter darkly about anti-Catholic agendas and vendettas. My Scotland is still a thrawn, aggressive, carnaptious and disputatious wee nation. But it is also enlightened, tolerant, kind (in a gruff don't-mention-it sort of way) and remains a beacon in its continuing preferential option for its own poor and the vulnerable and the persecuted of other countries. Occasionally, it will take itself too seriously and retreat into itself and give itself a right good talking to: are we too fond of the bevvy; do we smoke too much; does my public sector look big in this; will Sean Connery ever buy a house here? Sometimes, we come off the ropes fighting only to discover that our opponent went home a few hours ago. We need to relax and get out more. This month, we are getting all introspective again. Are we an anti-Catholic country? No, absolutely not. Last week, the Catholic church had a rare opportunity to offer charity and forgiveness in its response to the Dallas email imbroglio. In this, it was found wanting and we who love both our faith and Scotland are reduced because of it. We are not victims.
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