SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer
A senior priest has told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council contributed to rare but ‘horrible mistakes’ that the Church made in dealing with clergy accused of abusing children.
IAN DUNN
A senior priest has told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council contributed to rare but ‘horrible mistakes’ that the Church made in dealing with clergy accused of abusing children.
Mgr Peter Smith, a priest of Glasgow Archdiocese and former Vatican attache at the United Nations, told the inquiry last week that during the 1970s the Church accepted the standards of the day that ‘it was better to repair the person, to fix them or to redeem them, and that was a huge mistake.’
“The circumstances of the Second Vatican Council made a significant difference to the whole way that the Church proceeded,” he said. “Prior to that we proceeded fairly legalistically and fairly authoritarian, whereas the Second Vatican Council asked us to proceed pastorally and caring for people. And that pastoral care was exercised very strongly towards the priests who had been accused and I think perhaps less strongly towards those who had been on the receiving end of such a vicious thing to do.”
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