SCOTLAND
Motherwell Times
by Mike McQuaid
motherwell.times@jnscotland.co.uk
Published on the 07 January
A petition backing a priest who has been suspended from his duties was handed to the office of the Bishop of Motherwell today.
Supporters of Fr Matthew Despard, who is from Motherwell, have gathered around 1,300 signatures and are demanding he be allowed back into the pulpit.
Fr Despard angered fellow priests and the church authorities last year when he published a book alleging a culture of sexual misconduct within the priesthood.
The book prompted threats of legal action from priests who claimed they had been defamed.
In November Bishop Joseph Toal, acting Bishop of Motherwell Diocese, suspended Fr Despard from his post as parish priest at St John Ogilvie in Blantyre pending an investigatio
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