Bishops accused of failure to act on abuse report

The man who led an independent review into safeguarding in the Catholic Church in Scotland says he is dismayed by the Church’s lack of urgency in acting on his major recommendation that it should reach out to abuse survivors, writes Brian Morton.

The Very Revd Dr Andrew McLellan, the Church of Scotland minister whose report was published in August last year, told The Tablet that he was by turns “despondent” and “angry” that the Church had not done more over the last seven months.

Dr McLellan was concerned at the apparent failure to address his two major recommendations: that the Church reach out to survivors of abuse and involve them in framing future policy; and that an independent voice lead reforms.

He said that he had been hugely encouraged by the positive response to his report last autumn, with an immediate apology to victims from the Archbishop of Glasgow and president of the Scottish Bishops’ Conference, Philip Tartaglia.

However, in the months that followed, Dr McLellan considered it an alarming sign that the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ website still carried a request for submissions from survivors and other interested parties by 31 December 2015. The latest posting on the Scottish Church’s safeguarding page related to the appointment of Tina Campbell as national safeguarding officer in August 2013. “This hardly shows energy, let alone urgency,” Dr McLellan said.

He pointed out that Mgr Hugh Bradley, general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, had spoken of considerable activity “behind the scenes” in the Scottish Catholic Church.

“The problem with this is that activity ‘behind the scenes’ has been at the root of the problem for 20 years,” said Dr McLellan, reiterating his commission’s finding that what was required was a process of transparent disclosure at every stage of investigation.

A spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland pointed out that Dr McLellan’s work took almost two years to complete and that the Church’s implementation plan published last year will be completed by December 2017.

“Three task groups have already started work, the bishops have agreed a theology of safeguarding, work is under way on establishing the mechanism for survivor involvement and the conference are in the process of inviting individuals to participate in the independent body recommended by the commission,” he said.