The event will include debate on issues of the day, dialogue with guest speakers, and the presentation by each delegate of a short paper on a subject of their own choice.
If you are eligible for the programme and interested in taking part, or know anyone who might be interested, please contact Islay McLeod on her usual email address:
islay@scottishreview.net
and she will send you further details.
The banner
A season of protest
and uprising
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Arthur Bell
on the persecution
of his father
Robin McMillan
on a remarkable
pilgrimage to Scotland
Photograph of Archbishop Tartaglia by Bill Heaney
Will the installation of Pope Francis be a catalyst for meaningful change in the Catholic Church in Scotland? Commentators from academia and the law have had their say, but what do the ordinary punters in the pews think? They have had their apology from Archbishop Philip Tartaglia for the ‘hypocrisy’ of the Cardinal O’Brien debacle. Is that it though, or is there more to come?
Will the clergy take a step back while the people of God are at last given the place accorded to them by the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago? Will women be given a meaningful role or, once things settle, will it be back to the ‘pay up and pray up’ and ‘mind your place’ ways Catholics in Scotland have had to endure for so long?
Tartaglia has admitted that the church’s mission, credibility and moral authority have been undermined and that it will ‘take time, perhaps a long time, to recover these intangible but important realities’. There has meanwhile been much speculation about openness and transparency to come, but the reality is that the archbishop has failed to sketch out in any detail his plans for the future.
Admittedly it is early days yet but those Scottish Catholics who are paying close attention to what has been going on are wondering out loud if what has been said so far amounts to anything more than wishful thinking. They are rightly asking will there be real changes in the church or will the Barque of Peter sail on regardless with Pope Francis on the bridge and Tartaglia at the tartan tiller.
The major questions being asked are how, when and, most importantly, can and will Tartaglia change things – and how much wind and clear water will he be allowed by the Curia in Rome?
It appears certain the archbishop of Glasgow will not give way on the issues of gay marriage, gay adoption and assisted dying which have caused the church to ship so much water in recent times. But he will not be as shrill or strident as his predecessor, nor will he court publicity the way O’Brien did. Tartaglia has not been short of advice, mainly from academics, about where he should take the church in Scotland in the 21st century.
Professor John Haldane has suggested reducing the number of Scottish dioceses, possibly to just four, and ensuring that the new bishops ‘are neither liberal malcontents nor liturgical fetishists’. Haldane has also proposed that a body of lay advisers should have influence in designating the names and boundaries of these new apostolic territories in Scotland.
The St Andrews academic has proposed that already ordained priests make a solemn, written pledge to celibacy. But this would be the equivalent of priests signing their own redundancy notices and returning to the lay state, possibly in middle age, without a house, money, qualifications or experience to do other work. Given the shortage of priests there is little chance of this or indeed any of Haldane’s suggestions being implemented soon, and ‘soon’ in church terms can mean half a century or longer.
One thing, however, that might be both radical and achievable in the short-term would be to welcome a woman from one of the religious orders, possibly the Sisters of Notre Dame, to be present at the Scottish Bishops’ Conference. This would give women, who are the mainstay of the church in Scotland in the parishes and schools, ‘a seat at the table’, even if that is initially only as an observer. Perhaps the instructions from the bridge to the engine room should be steady as she goes – and quietly.
The time seems right for the Catholic Church in Scotland to take the first line of the ‘Desiderata’, a popular poem cum prayer, as its chart to a new direction of travel: ‘Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember the peace there can be in silence…’
SR is having a short break over Easter and will return
on Tuesday 9 April
