Catholic Church abuse probe findings to be published

Scotsman
August 18, 2015

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/catholic-church-abuse-probe-findings-to-be-published-1-3861440

The McLellan Commission's findings are set to be published. Photo by Phil Wilkinson

Published today, the report by the McLellan Commission makes a series of recommendations for the Church following years of high-profile abuse scandals.

Led by Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the commission calls for survivors of abuse to be made an “absolute priority” for the Catholic Church.

Dr McLellan said: “There is unanimous agreement among members of the Commission about our eight recommendations. Nothing in out 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 added: “This is the greatest challenge facing the whole Catholic Church in Scotland. Change will come when the whole membership of the Church owns this desire for change and embrace the agenda set out in our report.”

The commission was set up in November 2013 by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland in response to a series of scandals, including the resignation of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

He stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February 2013 after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.

As part of its work, the commission heard from victims of abuse but its remit did not extend to investigating or ruling on current or historical allegations.

Its members included Malcolm Graham, Assistant Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Ranald Mair, chief executive of Scottish Care, and Kathleen Marshall, former Commissioner for Children and Young People.

Alongside the review, the Catholic Church in Scotland published details of diocesan safeguarding audits from 2006 to 2012 giving a breakdown of incidents reported during that time.

A total of 46 allegations were made, of which 55 per cent related to sexual abuse, 19 per cent to physical abuse, 11 per cent were allegations of verbal abuse and 15 per cent were in connection with emotional abuse.

Of those accused, 56 per cent were priests, 22 per cent were volunteers, 11 per cent were parishioners and the remainder were staff or other people connected to the church.

There have been no prosecutions in relation to 61 per cent of all cases reported, the church said.

It also announced that a review of all cases of historic abuse allegations between 1947 and 2005 will be published at a later date.