Today, Leo Cushley is due to be ordained Archbishop of St
Andrews and Edinburgh. His installation comes after one of the greatest periods of crisis in the history of Scottish Catholicism.
Can his appointment mark a new beginning that will see the Church regain trust and relevance?
Few tourists see Edinburgh’s Ninian’s Church. On 27 August, it was the setting for a Mass dedicated to the victims of clerical sex abuse.
It was an occasion for Catholics to gather and “lament the failings of those who minister in your name which has caused such hurt to the innocent”. This was according to the notes issued in advance by the parish council.
Words encapsulating the Church’s mission were displayed on the wall behind the altar with one of them, “Trust”, conspicuously scored through. The notes prepared under the aegis of the local priest, Fr Hugh Purcell, were explicit about the actions needed for trust to be restored: “we have yet to establish the full account of the abuse committed by Cardinal O’Brien … Now some may feel that since [he] has confessed and apologised, should we not just move on? Well, we cannot move on until we establish truth and justice for those who have been abused.”
Keith O’Brien’s admission of sexual impropriety on 3 March, days after he had quit as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh at Pope Benedict XVI’s request, came like a thunderbolt.
He had been vehement about the need for marriage to remain a heterosexual institution, yet he was denounced to Rome by priests who had complained of his improper advances towards them.
Instances of clerical sex abuse involving lower clergy and members of the Benedictine teaching order then began to be revealed by the media. The hierarchy had defended its record in previous cases in the face of accusations of concealment.
But then recriminations occurred with Mario Conti, Emeritus Archbishop of Glasgow, claiming in a letter to The Tablet that Cardinal O’Brien had blocked an independent audit into clerical sex abuse that his colleagues favoured.
Stepping into this religious minefield is Mgr Leo Cushley, a 52-year-old Scot who is to be installed today as the new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.
The Vatican has shown belated interest in a province that sometimes seems overlooked in favour of England and Wales by appointing a Vatican-based diplomat with plenty of media experience.
But initial hopes that the Vatican would organise an apostolic visitation to Scotland, given the scale of the emerging problems, now appear to be fading.
Perhaps Archbishop Cushley’s most difficult task will be to effect the gradual renewal of church life in an archdiocese where routine tasks were neglected by a charismatic leader very conscious of his media profile. Ultimately, disaffected clergy rejected Cardinal O’Brien’s authority as did scores of Catholic intellectuals.
Their ire was stoked when Archbishop Conti persuaded Cardinal O’Brien to allow him to decide personally the fate of archives painstakingly unified by the late Cardinal Gordon Gray and scholarly advisers after 1959.
Archbishop Conti’s dream is to take the most precious of them to his home town and relocate them in a new archival centre at the University of Aberdeen.
Unless the new archbishop can arrange an amicable solution for archives originally held in the heart of his archdiocese, the dispute is likely to overshadow part of his time in Edinburgh: steely-minded historians who believe that canon law was broken, clarity was lacking and advisory bodies marginalised, do not intend to let the matter drop.
Facing a crisis in clerical numbers, it will be remarkable if Archbishop Cushley does not reach out to the laity in the work of diocesan renewal. Cardinal O’Brien’s minimalist approach, whereby he commissioned reports on faith issues only to do nothing about them, is one that has no future.
On a more positive note, other Christian Churches have reacted with sorrow and dismay to Catholic troubles. Even the Orange Order has kept its Schadenfreude within tolerable limits. Decades of interfaith cooperation have eroded denominational suspicions but the ecumenical movement has grown flabby and formulaic.
Currently, there is no coherent vision for a just society based on recognisable Christian values in Scotland. A code of ethical values capable of influencing alienated and marginalised Scots, sometimes driven towards extreme behaviour and antagonisms, is lacking in public life.
In some poor communities, conflicting identities crudely fabricated from religious symbols are still used as munitions to prolong sectarian feuds.
During the football season of 2010-11, controversial incidents deriving from the furious rivalry between the Glasgow clubs, Rangers and Celtic, led the Scottish Government to rush through legislation against rowdy songs and chants.
Only football grounds and their environs are covered by the law and recent court decisions suggest that it is unworkable.
Assertive secularists have state-funded Catholic schools in their sights. Critics are unwilling to acknowledge that these schools might be a social gain for Scotland. The curriculum’s emphasis on a moral dimension equips many pupils with a sense of citizenship and they have resulted in upward mobility for several generations who have attended the best of them. However, for their opponents, they symbolise a backward belief system now out of place in Scotland.
Today, anti-clericals with a humanist perspective enjoy far more influence in the Scottish state than militant Protestants could ever previously claim. From their strongholds in the civil service, media and parts of the voluntary sector, they are adept at networking. By contrast, an introspective Church, perhaps still conscious of its immigrant origins, remains outside the patronage networks that traditionally have dominated Scottish decision-making.
Peter Kearney, the experienced head of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, says he finds it laughable that the Church is still thought to pull strings from behind the scenes. Earlier this year he challenged anyone to name a single piece of legislation in the past decade that the Catholic Church has publicly opposed and that ultimately failed to become law.
However, the ascendancy of secularists in the policy realm is a brittle one. They are committed to improving society through top-down interventions but often these backfire due to their middle-class exponents being divorced from everyday realities.
The national percentage of Scottish Catholics is likely to fall from the present 15 per cent to below 10 per cent unless the Church is able to establish a stronger presence in more of the poorer communities, in which Catholics are still heavily located. It can probably only do so through actively engaging dedicated lay members.
Perhaps working alongside other religious groups and offering a Christian vision for some of the acute challenges in Scottish society can also enable a new version of the Christian ministry to take root in tough social conditions.
Currently, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland is a form of governance that sometimes appears to be about managing decline. Church leaders share out responsibilities but they are often reliant on feeble bureaucracies with energetic lay people usually kept at arms length.
If genuine dialogue and vigilance had been a feature of their deliberations, it is hard to see how a crisis of the magnitude of that of 2013 could ever have occurred.
The battle to regain trust will not be easy. In being assigned by Rome to investigate the accusations lodged against his predecessor, Archbishop Cushley immediately faces a tough leadership challenge.
But the battle for the Church to regain relevance in a country whose political elite is absorbed by a campaign for independence, while numerous social problems persist, is probably far harder.
With the secular policy framework based on hyper-plural values leaving many of Scotland’s pathologies untouched, the Churches have the chance to promote an alternative design for living.
But to stand a chance, a religious renewal in the public sphere needs to have something original to offer in the realm of ideas, policies and participation. Piety and good works are insufficient. Innovative approaches to linking the gospel message to tackling contemporary social ills are needed.
Hierarchies and bureaucracies may now beat a tactical retreat before decentralised forms of Christian action.
The reception that Archbishop Cushley receives, especially if he is mindful of the need for a Catholic relaunch in Scotland, will determine how real the appetite for change is.