Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures Ad the Scottish Catholic Church Says Sorry

By Bill Heaney
Daily Record
September 4, 2015

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/local-lifestyle/bill-heaney-desperate-times-call-6379797

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia

t was the strangest press conference I have ever attended in half a century in journalism.

One half of it was held in Edinburgh in the Apex Waterloo Hotel and the other half in Glasgow in St Andrew’s Cathedral.

They were not linked – or at least they were not supposed to be seen to be linked – but one had been set up to launch the report of the McLellan Commission on clerical abuse in the Catholic Church in Scotland. The other was for Archbishop Philip Tartaglia to respond to the report which Scotland’s bishops had invited a panel of “experts” to deliver.

This panel of 12 distinguished apostles of democracy, faith and fairness was set up in 2013 under the chairmanship of Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

It was a desperate measure for the Scottish Catholic Church, which has thousands of members in West Dunbartonshire, to call on a Church of Scotland dignitary to explore its dirty linen in public.

But desperate situations require desperate measures, embarrassing though that may be for a church which once would not allow its members to cross the threshold of a Protestant kirk.

The commission’s remit was to undertake “a review of all aspects of safeguarding policy, procedure and practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland”.

However, the bishops, led by former Dumbarton priest, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, made it clear from the outset that it was not within the scope of the commission “to investigate or adjudicate on current or historical allegations”.

This, some people have since observed, meant the commission embarked on its mission with one hand tied behind its back.

It certainly barred it from looking into, for example, the allegations of improper sexual conduct which led to the public humiliation and resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien on the eve of the conclave to elect Pope Francis.

It inhibited them, too, when it came to investigating the 61 cases of sexual abuse by clergy and related others in the Catholic Church in Scotland in the past decade and the many other unquantified cases which took place previously.

The bishops said “sorry” – a profound apology was what Archbishop Tartaglia called it – which was no surprise really since, as the report revealed, the church has much to be sorry about.

Asked by a senior editor of a “quality” newspaper for my initial reaction to the report, I said it looked “bland and unremarkable” and wondered about the people in the pews getting their heads around one phrase in particular – “the theology of safeguarding”.

Does this mean if we all pray hard enough, this nightmare will go away?

Another journalist said there was very little by way of recommendations of meaningful action in the report itself, or in the bishops’ response to it.

He felt it should have addressed recompense for the injustices borne and physical and mental injury suffered by the abuse victims, who were described as “survivors” in the report.

It was remarkable that Archbishop Tartaglia chose to make the bishops’ response to the report during mass in his cathedral at a pause usually reserved for the homily.

The only sentence I could find there that day which might be helpful to a bishop having to make a public response from the pulpit about such a scandal was Gideon wringing his hands and asking an angel: “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?”

Back in Edinburgh earlier, the reporters who turned up for the McLellan press conference were told there would be no questions from the floor after the chairman had made his statement, which was truly odd.

The reporters had to line up thereafter in a queue which some of us Catholics thought a bit like confessions, sitting there waiting for our “one to ones” with the priest but without the fear of the penance we might receive at the end of it.

The media outcomes were not good for the church and which the Scotsman reported had been condemned by a survivors’ spokesman as “a whitewash”.

Saying sorry was, according to Dr McLellan, the important thing for the bishops though, the easiest part, and they have done that.

It must be hugely embarrassing for them though to have been told by a churchman not of their faith to tear up the script on their so-called safeguarding policies.

These were described as not fit for purpose in a report which trotted out all the old cliches we have become used to from politicians, priests and prelates in trouble.

The bishops were advised to write a new set of measures to prevent the abuse of children and vulnerable adults and to publish it for public scrutiny within three months.

However, this should not be too difficult for the hierarchy, even if they are used to conducting their affairs in an atmosphere of secrecy, but they should try to put more bite and meaningful recommendations into it than is contained in the McLellan report.

Lots of Catholics, many of whom no longer attend their 20 churches in West Dunbartonshire, which has one of the highest populations of Catholics per head in Scotland, are waiting anxiously for the outcome.