SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland
Sunday 2 February 2014
Exclusive by Catherine Deveney
Sunday night in late January, a coal-black sky and brutal chill in Ayrshire, as the faithful gather.
Not in church but in the welcoming glow of a house in Darvel, where Father Patrick Lawson, who has been removed from his parish by the Bishop of Galloway, John Cunningham, will celebrate a private mass. Father Lawson is recovering from serious illness and inside the house, as candlelight flickers up from the altar and illuminates his face, there is concern among his supporters.
He has been up sick the night before and the stress is showing. “Father doesn’t look well,” one says. “I saw him pulling up his trousers,” says another, referring to the weight he has lost. Father Lawson smiles wryly. “I hope nobody misinterprets that.”
But that is the interesting thing about Patrick Lawson’s case. There is no scandal or priestly sexual impropriety – at least not on his part. The abuser in this tale walks free.
Last week, just days after supporters rallied to the house mass, he heard his appeal to Rome against his bishop’s decision had been rejected. He will now appeal to the Signatura, the highest court in Rome, and is also taking an industrial tribunal case for unfair dismissal.
Last night, a group of his supporters returned to the principal parish church at St Sophia’s, Galston, for the first time since his removal in September last year, to protest when a letter informing parishioners of Rome’s decision was read out.
Not that the bishop explained anything. He would remain silent, the letter insisted, until all proceedings were concluded, “to protect the integrity of this process and the reputation of Father Lawson”. As if there is some dark secret about Lawson, yet to be declared. What could it be?
There have been many abuser priests secretly moved and protected in the Catholic Church. Which of them has been publicly evicted? Yet in the last six months, two Scottish priests – Pat Lawson and Matthew Despard – have been removed from parishes. The two cases are very different but have one thing in common: both priests have spoken out against the church hierarchy. Pat Lawson has fought for the entire 18 years of his priesthood to have church authorities deal appropriately with a serious case of sexual abuse. Despard has spoken out on a separate matter: the secret culture of homosexuality within the priesthood. So what is really going on in the Scottish Catholic church?
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