SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland
By Liz Leydon
As the film Spotlight brings the Boston Catholic Church clerical abuse crisis back to the forefront of our minds, reopening old wounds for all involved, it draws inevitable but inaccurate comparisons between the abuse crisis and cover up in the church in the US, dating from the turn of the millennium expose, and what is happening in the Scottish Church at present.
I have had the demanding privilege of working on Church abuse stories on both sides of the Atlantic during my time with the Boston Herald group at the height of the Church abuse crisis and now as editor of The Scottish Catholic Observer (SCO), Scotland’s independent national Catholic newspaper. It is clear from survivors’ accounts in both countries, others such as in Ireland and from subsequent investigations that crimes occurred, serious mistakes were made and the Church as an institution had a steep learning curve on reporting and handling accusations of abuse, issues too repulsive to imagine. While I have respect for the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning-team featured in Spotlight, wider mistakes were also made in the early reporting on the abuse issue – such as sensationalism of already horrific news– due to a lack of understanding about such an emotive subject and of the Catholic Church; also, because of agendas.
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