Scottish Catholic Observer

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow has offered a ‘profound apology’ on behalf of Scotland’s bishops to those who have been abused within the Church, and to those who believe they have not been heard.

The president of the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland was responding to the publication of the McLellan report on Tuesday morning into how the Scottish Church handles allegation of abuse, which said the Church must ‘put survivors first’ from now on and apologise publicly for past wrongdoing. At Mass on Tuesday afternoon, Archbishop Tartaglia publicly apologised for clerical abuse saying: “We apologise to those who have found the Church’s response slow, unsympathetic or uncaring and reach out to them as we take up the recommendations of the McLellan Commission.”

“Child abuse is a horrific crime,” he added in his homily. “That this abuse should have been carried out within the Church, and by priests and religious, takes that abuse to another level. Such actions are inexcusable and intolerable. The harm the perpetrators of abuse have caused is first and foremost to their victims, but it extends far beyond them, to their families and friends, as well as to the Church and wider society.”

The archbishop, who was joined at the Mass by Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell, Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen, Bishop William Nolan of Galloway, Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti of Glasgow and Bishop Emeritus Maurice Taylor of Galloway, said that survivors of abuse should know ‘the Catholic bishops of Scotland are shamed and pained by what you have suffered.’ “We say sorry,” he said. “We ask forgiveness.”

The archbishop then repeated what he had said when the McLellan Commission was announced: “We recognise the trauma and pain that victims and survivors of abuse have suffered and we are committed to providing for them both justice and healing.”

Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Church of Scotland Moderator, said at the report’s release that his commission had found there was ‘no doubt’ that ‘abuse of the most serious kind has taken place within the Church in Scotland.’

Dr McLellan, a former head of HMI prison inspectorate who the bishops’ conference asked to chair the independent commission, added that dealing with the legacy of abuse in the Church is the ‘greatest challenge facing the whole Catholic Church in Scotland.’

He told the SCO that he had been ‘deeply distressed’ by the stories of abuse survivors he had heard while compiling the report and said that the bishops of Scotland admitted there had been a ‘culture of secrecy’ with the Church in the past, but that they had told him they were ‘determined to face up to that past and replace secrecy with openness.’

The McLellan Commission offered eight key recommendations the Scottish Church can follow to ensure it is ‘a safe place for all.’

Firstly and most importantly the report says the Church ‘must reach out to survivors,’ listen to survivors and make a ‘public apology to all survivors of abuse within the Catholic Church.’

Further recommendations say the Church must rewrite its safeguarding policy, introduce independent monitoring of its safeguarding procedures, measure their ongoing effectiveness, and ensure the Church’s approach to safeguarding is consistent. The report also calls on the Church to: Commit to ensure no one within the Church ever prevents justice from being done; ensure high quality safeguarding training is widespread and continuous across the Church; and create a new ‘theology of safeguarding.’

The recommendations also include setting up a way for whistle-blowers to reveal abuse within the Church without fear of the consequences, an independent system of monitoring the Church’s safeguarding procedure outwith Church control and for the Church to pay for counselling for survivors of abuse.

Dr McLellan said that all too often in the past ‘words had led nowhere’ but these recommendations ‘can be measured.’ and the Church should be able to demonstrate ‘one year from now, three years from now, how much progress has been made.’

“If they take this opportunity the Church will be a safer place for all,” he said of the bishops.

The Scottish Bishop’s Conference appointed Dr McLellan to carry out the review of the Church’s safeguarding procedures in 2014. This came after a series of scandals that rocked the Church, including allegations of historical abuse of children at the Franciscan run Fort Augustus school and the separate resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien over personal conduct that fell short of his role in the Church.

In the McLellan report Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews and Edinburgh says that the Church needed to set up the commission because ‘we can’t preach the Gospel without clearing this up.’

This weekend 100,000 leaflets will be distributed around all Scottish parishes detailing the McLellan report’s findings and including the full text of Archbishop Tartaglia’s apology on behalf of the hierarchy.

— Full text of Archbishop Tartaglia’s apology http://www.scottishcatholicme

diaoffice.org/articles/response-to-mclellan-commission.html

— McLellan Commission report online at https://www.mclellan

commission.co.uk/

Pic: Paul McSherry

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—This story ran in full in the AUGUST 21 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.