Peter Kearney, Spokesman for the Scottish Bishops, provoked an angry response from at least one priest – Fr Paul Morton, St Bride’s Cambuslang (Diocese of Motherwell) – when he claimed, in an interview in The Herald, that Scotland is a hostile place for Catholics to live. Fr Morton took Peter Kearney to task via the Herald letters page next day and, with the usual ecumenical double-speak, painted a glowing picture of life among the heather for Catholic Scots. So, what do you think – IS Scotland a hostile place for Catholics to live?
Odd, though, that no letters appeared in similar shock at the news that Kearney still intends to vote for the SNP, architects of the same-sex marriage legislation, despite the high profile Catholic support for the Campaign for Marriage. Peter Kearney – representing the Bishops – interviewed well on TV news broadcasts to oppose the immoral SNP legislation yet he seems not to be aware of his inconsistency in pledging to vote for the Nationalists in the future. His rationale? “You can’t agree with everything, and it’s the party I have most in common with. I still personally support independence for Scotland.” God help us all, if this is the way the “senior Catholics” in Scotland think.
Will sanity ever return to the Church? Anywhere? Especially here in Scotland where it’s almost impossible to find a fully believing, fully practising Catholic, lay or ordained. Increasingly, I’m meeting thoroughly protestantised laity – described as “Roman Protestants” in one very interesting article of that title sent to me by an English reader some years ago..
Is there anything more that concerned laity and clergy can do to hasten the return of said sanity?