SCOTLAND
The Tablet
Emeritus Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti
23 August 2013
The Emeritus Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, responds to an editorial in The Tablet of 10 August that criticised safeguarding in the Catholic Church of Scotland and compared it unfavourably with England and Wales.
The Tablet’s editorial, “Curse of Complacency”, made some damning judgments of the Catholic Church in Scotland with respect to safeguarding, suggesting that it “has a long way to go” and that “the Catholic Church in England and Wales [is] streets ahead of Scotland” in respect of caring for survivors. The editorial illustrates this with reference to the recent revelations about alleged abuse of boys at Fort Augustus School by monks of the Abbey.
Firstly with regard to Fort Augustus, the school and monastery was within the ecclesiastical area of Scotland but not under the jurisdiction of the Church in Scotland other than in respect of its parish responsibilities. The internal life of the abbey and the management of its school was outside these. It was autonomous as a Benedictine community and in terms of its affiliation was a member of the English Benedictine Congregation. If any of these allegations had been made to me while I was Bishop of Aberdeen from 1977 to 2002, I would have alerted the proper authorities to them.
A statement was made recently on behalf of the Church in Scotland with which I fully concur: “We deplore acts of abuse at any time, in any place, committed by anyone representing the Church, or working in, with or for the Church. Although legal and criminal responsibility for any abusive behaviour may lie elsewhere, Scotland’s Catholic Dioceses are prepared to accept pastoral responsibility for those who have been harmed to help them heal.” Each diocese has someone in place to hear complaints and to advise complainants how to proceed in having them addressed.
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