Keenan urges MSPs to try to reach towards consensus

The Bishop of Paisley has urged members of the Scottish Parliament to embrace an integrity that goes further than “loyalty to our party” and is rooted in loving service to the whole parliament, above and beyond partisan lines, writes Brian Morton.

Speaking at Holyrood, the Scottish Parliament, last week (before the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox), Bishop John Keenan said that the “kind of loving service the Gospel speaks about is not easy but its values are already written into the furniture of this very chamber”.

He contrasted the layout of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh – with its opened-up circle – which reaches towards consensus, to the more “adversarial layout” of the House of Commons in London, where the benches are arranged so that MPs are facing one another across the chamber.

The bishop was giving the Time for Reflection address – a short reflection on matters of faith and belief by a guest speaker – which is usually the first item of business each Wednesday at Holyrood.

This move towards consensus should be the “landscape of the politician’s soul”, he added. “The good MSPs know they have opponents but hope to be no one’s enemy,” and they govern in a way that serves the whole people.

Bishop Keenan concluded by thanking God for the elected representatives of Scotland and praying that every day “they come ready to greet all their peers so that our democracy can grow ever richer”.