Islay McLeod
launches an SR competition
Also on this page:
Rear Window
James Shaw Grant on second sight
Kenneth Roy’s revelation of the email exchange between the civil servant charged by the cabinet secretary to respond to correspondence sent to her by the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti KCHS, PhL, STL, DD, FRSE, and ‘Anne’, an employee of Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, could not have been more timely.
Dorothy-Grace Elder’s instant response burned with immediacy.
As the days progressed, the sense of timing developed into a theme. During the celebration of Mass at Bellahouston, ‘Be Thou My Vision’, a hymn loved by all Christian denominations, was sung by a congregation which included members of the Scottish government. The television director could not have realised the conjunction of Kenneth Roy’s article and Dorothy-Grace Elder’s response in successive editions of the Scottish Review when he cut from a shot of Ms Sturgeon singing the hymn to a shot of His Grace, Archbishop Mario Conti on the dais concelebrating the Mass alongside His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
Thanks to the Scottish Review an important lesson has been learned this week. What has been witnessed is the worrying reflection of an attitude of an elected member of the Scottish Parliament charged with the awesome responsibility of the physical and mental health of the nation towards an eminent and much-loved member of Scottish life who asked her a simple question.
What is her plan for the future of a hospice which offers loving, tender care to the dying and their families whether they be Christian, Moslem, Hindu, atheist…?
Christine Martin
I. Brian Fitzpatrick
II. Eric Wilson
I read yesterday’s issue and felt a bit indignant about the defence of
the Pope by Catherine Czerkawska – here’s why.
Catherine Czerkawska’s article defending the Pope against various attacks
quite caught me by surprise – the reason being, when I read the email
subject box for yesterday’s edition – ‘Why is Scotland honouring this man?’
– I automatically assumed it was referencing the Pope on his visit to Scotland and the rest of the UK. On finding that in fact the subject was Donald Trump, being honoured by Robert Gordon University, it still made perfect sense; the logic of the question was irrefutable given the man’s contempt for the democratic voice of the particular part of Scotland he wishes to desecrate in order to promote his rich man’s exclusive club.
However it would make equal sense to apply it to the visit of Joseph Ratzinger with his shameful history of treatment of child abuse allegation within the Roman Catholic Church, as cardinal and beyond. And it goes beyond that; the excellent television documentary by Peter Tatchell ‘The Trouble With The Pope’ lays bare a number of reasons why we should have actively discouraged an official visit by this disturbing man. (I won’t bother summarising those reasons here – they are already well documented and
more eloquently argued than I would manage; suffice to say they include his
welcoming back to the fold of the church a self-avowed holocaust-denying
bishop.)
So I’m afraid, Catherine, that the undoubtedly rude and at times plainly
prejudiced comments on social networking sites hardly justify a defence of
the Pope and his visit. Civilised people always should abhor prejudiced
remarks on the basis of religion etc; the arguments against what this man
represents are however much more substantial than mere blind prejudice and
to focus on the unseemly and distasteful nature of those attacks merely
obfuscates the main issue surrounding the papal visit – that his views on a
number of issues reveal him to be to be a person of questionable moral
values and certainly not to be honoured in the way that we obliged him.
III. Richard Bingham
Jill Stephenson’s excellent article (SR 305) on the Catholic church’s attitude towards women only dealt with the inherent misogyny of its attitude towards reliable contraception. There are two further points which need to be made.
First, the hostility towards use of barrier methods, in particular condoms, is a significant factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide, with the worst infection figures in the developing countries. To which the Catholic church only offers the impractical advice that abstinence before marriage and being faithful within it will prevent infection – given the failure of so many priests to abstain from sexual relationships, how can anyone expect the population at large to be any better behaved? Condoms are a vital weapon in the struggle to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, not to mention other STDs.
Second, the population of this planet is already at unsustainable levels in relation to our energy, food and water resources. We daily get exhorted by politicians to ‘save the planet’ by recycling, reducing our ‘carbon footprints’ and so forth, but by far the greatest threat to mankind’s continuing existence on earth is the ever increasing population.
The Chinese grasped this particular nettle in the 1980s with their strict one baby per couple rule. This unpopular measure is draconian, but had the effect of bringing down the population growth rate (birth rate minus death rate) in China from 15.57 per 1,000 in 1986 to 5.28 per 1,000 in 2006, a time when the death rate did not change significantly. Although in a civilised society mandatory curbs on family size are unacceptable, voluntary limits should be strongly encouraged. Cardinal Winning’s wishes that small families were ‘a bit bigger’ (SR 302) is the last thing this overcrowded planet needs, and is irresponsible.
