Catholic Church 'Must Address Past Wrongs'

By James Matthews
Sky News
August 18, 2015

http://news.sky.com/story/1537534/catholic-church-must-address-past-wrongs

The Church has been told it needs to "confront a dark part of its past"

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the former leader of the Scottish Catholic Church

Scotland's most senior Catholic has offered a "profound apology" to victims of abuse within the Church, following the release of an independent review of how it handled past allegations.

The report urged the Church to address the wrongs of the past and make an "unmistakeable and unequivocal" apology to those who have suffered.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia used Tuesday afternoon's homily at St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow to address the issue publicly.

"As the president of the Bishops' Conference, and on behalf of all the Bishops of Scotland, I want to offer a profound apology to all those who have been harmed and who have suffered in any way as a result of actions by anyone within the Catholic Church," he told the congregation.

"Child abuse is a horrific crime. That this abuse should have been carried out within the Church, and by priests and religious, takes that abuse to another level.

"Such actions are inexcusable and intolerable."

His comments follow the release of an independent commission's report into the Catholic Church of Scotland, which made eight recommendations for how the organisation should respond to the issue.

It said the Church should update its safety guidelines and ensure that survivors were treated as an "absolute priority".

The 11-member commission was led by Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 

Speaking at a press conference in Edinburgh, he said: "Nothing in our independent report is more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland."

He said the Church needed to "confront a dark part of its past" to help survivors deal with the hurt and anger they still feel, adding that such a move would also help the Church restore public credibility.

While the report recommended that "justice be done", its brief did not extend to investigating or ruling on allegations of abuse.

The inquiry was established in November 2013 the wake of a series of scandals, including the resignation of Cardinal Keith O'Brien in February 2013, then the leader of Scotland's Catholic community. 

He stepped down after admitting sexual misconduct against three priests and one former priest. 

Separate to the commission, the Catholic Church of Scotland has also published details of safeguarding audits from 2006 to 2012.

During that time, a total of 46 allegations were made. More than half related to sexual abuse, while others involved allegations of physical abuse, verbal abuse or emotional abuse.

Of those accused, 56% were priests, 22% were volunteers, and 11% were parishioners. The remainder were staff or other people connected to the Church.

At present, there have been no prosecutions in relation to 61% of cases.