I WOULD like to believe that there is nothing that the Roman
Catholic Church in Scotland could do any more to shock me; but a
story in The Observer really does show its rotten and
corrupt aspect.
Catherine Deveney, who broke the story about Cardinal Keith
O'Brien in February, has found a really nasty aftershock. "A
Scottish Catholic priest, who has fought for 17 years to force the
hierarchy to act against a fellow priest who abused him, has been
dismissed from the diocese of Galloway while recovering from
cancer, and issued with a formal warning for talking to The
Observer.
"Father Patrick Lawson, who spoke out in The
Observer in July using the pseudonym 'Father Michael', was
sent a decree of removal by Bishop John Cunningham last Wednesday,
forcing him to hand over the keys of his parish house within two
days. . .
"'From the day Father Pat got ill he was given no support, yet
they support an abuser priest,' says parishioner Brigid McMaster.
"'Father Moore [the alleged abuser] was bought a house and is
listed as a retired priest. He should have been defrocked.'"
Elsewhere in the story it emerges that the Rt Revd Maurice
Taylor, the diocesan bishop when the scandal blew up, still does
not believe Fr Moore should have been laicised - less surprising
when you reflect that the two men had been on holiday together, and
had together visited socially Mgr Peter Magee, then a Vatican
diplomat, now the head of the Scottish church tribunal that deals
with marriage annulments and canon-law cases.
The story gains force from the calm and unsensational manner of
its telling. All of Deveney's reporting on this story has been
distinguished by its compassion and lack of outrage. But I find it
very hard to feel compassion and no outrage for the self-righteous
Stalinists of the Scottish hierarchy.
What is new, however, is that the laity are starting to play a
part. Fr Lawson's parishioners are threatening a boycott. There is
a limit to the sins that even tribal loyalty will forgive, and the
bishops, I think, are going to discover that they run a voluntary
organisation, which is, in the last analysis, dependent on the
goodwill, energy, and money of lay people who may well decide they
have more rewarding and morally better causes to support.
The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland seems to me to share some
of the characteristics of the diocese of Boston, not least a sense
of pugilistic entitlement built on a strong ethnic identity. Such
Churches seem impregnable from the outside; but they can very well
succumb to moral revulsion from inside and underneath.
THE rest of the week's news was mostly stories of exorcism. Two
Sunday tabloids had picked up on the pre-publicity for a BBC3 show
about a US evangelist who has an international ministry helped by
three young women (it would appear from their photograph that Satan
is repelled by the right lipstick). In the Sunday Express
they were "the Sexorcists".
"The trio, who all hold black belts in karate, spend their time
battling Satan and banishing demons from possessed souls - after
years of training to become exorcists. Savannah, 21, says: 'We have
a warrior mentality so we can defend ourselves physically but can
also fight the spiritual battle that is being waged every day.'
"After banishing evil spirits in Ukraine, they have come to
London armed with their crucifixes and Bibles. They are determined
to stop British teenagers from inviting Satan to possess them by
reciting the spells in the Harry Potter books, which they believe
are real."
Bob Larsson, the father of one of these girls, and their
employer, has an alliance with a Dutchman, Vincent ten Bouwhuis,
who runs a church in the East End of London, and offers online
courses in deliverance ministry, for £500, payable in instalments.
The Sunday Mirror had a story of him exorcising an
unfortunate Nigerian woman and his explanation that "Yoga is
harmful because it involves meditation which is an open door to the
devil. The whole lotus position is geared around worshipping a
demon, it's a way to please that demon."
WHAT a relief to turn to a more sophisticated spiritual leader:
The Times's Saturday magazine had a long interview with
Richard Dawkins, plugging his upcoming autobiography, which ends
unforgettably:
"'Ah, well.' He sighs. 'I am actually more humble than I'm
sometimes given credit for.' And a bit less worldly, too." I do
think that being a bit less humble than Richard Dawkins is an
achievement about which almost anyone could justly feel humble.