This announcement effectively ends the practice of providing sex-change drugs and hormone medications to children in Scotland — just one month after England instituted the same ban.

Per the new policy formalised on April 18, new patients in Scotland must wait until they are 18 years old to access those drugs or hormone medications. However, patients who are under the age of 18 and have already begun such remedies to facilitate a gender transition will not be forced to stop.

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The Scottish National Party is a broad church, it turns out, but some of its members seem to be finding difficulty in accepting that its breadth of opinion extends to traditional forms of Christianity.

The flashpoint has been the beliefs of Kate Forbes, (pictured) current finance minister and putative successor to Sturgeon, about gay marriage.

Forbes, a member of the Free Church of Scotland, admitted that, had she been a member of the Scottish Parliament, she would have voted against it when the bill to legalise it was passed in 2014.

She says that she respects the outcome of that vote and wrote on Facebook that she "will defend to the hilt the right of everybody in Scotland, particularly minorities, to live and to live without fear or harassment in a pluralistic and tolerant society".

She will, moreover, "uphold the laws that have been won, as a servant of democracy, and seek to enhance the rights of everybody to live in a way which enables them to flourish".

Nevertheless, even a further statement that "I firmly believe in the inherent dignity of each human being — that underpins all ethical and political decisions I make" has not been enough for her growing band of critics and enemies.

They see her brand of evangelical Presbyterianism as outdated, outrageous, and bigoted.

Forbes has lost considerable support in the race to succeed Sturgeon and, like former British Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, may well now find the path to future acts of public service narrow and unforgiving.

I am no supporter of the Scottish Nationalists (or Liberal Democrats), but it is easy to see why the hounding out of such people from public life is a bad thing.

I sincerely hope it does not happen in Australia. In the case of Tony Abbott, perhaps it already did.

The right to offend

The case against Forbes is riddled with hypocrisy and cant, of course.

Her main rival, Humza Yousaf, missed the gay marriage vote himself because of an "unavoidable meeting on a very important topic in relation to a prisoner on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy."

Less charitable minds than mine have wondered why the presence of a then junior Scottish minister was so essential to that dialogue.

Nevertheless, the intensity of the opprobrium heaped on Forbes raises a profound question about the role that professing Christians can play in public life in post-Christian democracies.

Currently this still seems more a British problem than an Australian one, although we all know that Britain's ill winds have had a general tendency to blow our way ever since the First Fleet.

The case for Forbes seems to go something like this: she has a right to her personal moral convictions and her statements have made plain her commitment to separating them from her public duty to uphold the law.

We cannot expect our politicians to hold a majoritarian view on every proposition — and the right to personal opinions about questions of morality and ethics, even unfashionable ones that offend many people, is fundamental to liberal democracy.

The philosopher Kathleen Stock - herself no stranger to controversies surrounding toleration of dissenting views — has suggested that the whole affair, above all, is the product of a new religious investment in victimhood among activists of all stripes which makes them unable to resist a good old search for baddies to shame and shun:

what we have here is a clash of two religions. One of them is full of sanctimonious, swivel-eyed moral scolds, rooting out heresy and trying to indoctrinate everybody into their fantastic way of thinking. The other is a branch of Calvinism.

Stock's article is, at root, an impassioned plea to recognise the ubiquity of differences of opinion and moral frameworks. We all need to grow up so that we are not policing every minor matter of conscience in the manner of a latter-day Holy Office.

Ironically, even the Catholic Church has come out in favour of this position. As its spokesman in Scotland told The Herald newspaper:

There is absolutely an intolerance of certain types of difference. We are less tolerant of people's religious orientations. Some of the things that have been said about religious opinions leave a lot of Catholics and a lot of Christians feeling marginalized.

A political culture which cannot tolerate dissent is a brittle one that can hardly be expected to remain liberal for long.

A clash of cultures

There may be much wisdom in Kathleen Stock's and the Catholic Church's observations and their recasting of Forbes as victim.

Yet, I wonder if such a response is truly adequate, for it plays down reasons why Forbes's detractors might see her — and her particular brand of evangelical Christianity — rather negatively.

For Stock, evangelical Protestants get caught up in these contemporary inquisitions not because they are any better or worse than the rest of us, but because they are easy targets.

Forbes, for instance, "is white, Cambridge-educated, and Christian, and for bonus points a follower of an obscure Calvinist denomination historically associated with such killjoy practices as tying up children's swings on a Sunday."

The fact, moreover, that Forbes is a woman also makes her even easier to vilify: "so much easier to project intolerance and unkindness upon her, relative to the presumed baseline for her sex".

There is irony here too in this particular defence of Forbes by the feminist philosopher, for Forbes herself came out against women's ordination in 2014, criticising "feminist-power arguments".

Nevertheless, the relevance of a politician's religious or philosophical beliefs to their suitability for office is what matters, as Stock identifies.

Should others be expected to respect their beliefs simply because those beliefs are grounded in religious traditions?

A critical thought experiment for many gay people who object to politicians who see homosexuality as sinful is this.

Imagine that Forbes was commenting not on gay marriage but on the legality of gay sex itself. Would anyone find it acceptable if she declared that she respects fellow lawmakers' decisions to have legalised gay sex but that she nevertheless personally believes gay men should still be prosecuted for buggery and be sent to prison if convicted?

To many of Forbes's critics, no categorical difference exists between these two examples.

She, in effect, asks to be allowed to hold a private view that other people's consensual acts are wrong, or that they should be denied rights the state accords everyone else in society, while also implying that her willingness not to try to impose her view on everyone is based only on a current consensus.

Even if the above is not quite Forbes's position — and, no doubt, it is easy to mischaracterise it — one can see readily enough why those she deems sinful might worry that she could favour using the state to enact any number of other social and moral restrictions which her brand of Calvinist Christianity endorses.

Where would the human rights be in that?

Politicians who allow themselves to be caught up in such a nexus at the very least reap what they sow.

They can hardly expect those whom they judge negatively to trust them or respect their judgment in the specific matter or in general.

Why evangelical Christians get a harder time

In fact, the basic issue in the Forbes case is not then simply a clash of religions — Christian versus post-Christian — as Stock would have it, but also a problem which Karl Popper identified long ago in The Open Society and its Enemies.

A tolerant, liberal society simply has to guard vigilantly, endlessly against potential threats to its liberal order: it cannot tolerate "intolerance".

Practising Christians may not seem like the likeliest or even gravest threat at present, but "intolerance" is notoriously hard to identify or even define.

The thought experiment presented above sets out how those whose rights have only recently been recognised might still see Christian demands to be privately excluded from aspects of the liberal settlement as posing a threat to them.

As an historian of Christianity I note, however, a certain irony about the way this discourse has developed in recent years.

Evangelical Protestantisms are now bearing much of the brunt of criticism, which seems odd because, traditionally, such Protestantisms were much less eager to impose their moral strictures on wider society than more expansive, proselytising forms of Christianity such as Roman Catholicism.

The original Calvinists believed themselves an "elect" who would be saved when the rest of us are damned.

Their performance of moral purity and righteousness was not so much to show others what to do by example but a sign that they had been chosen. They did not believe that all of us will be saved, nor that human agency can change what God has predestined.

This element to evangelical Protestant thinking may nevertheless partially explain why members of such churches are currently being caught up in these controversies more intensely than even the Catholic Church.

Catholic hypocrisy on sexual ethics is widely acknowledged. And a recent case from the United States, where a priest may have refused communion to an 81-year-old woman because she wore a rainbow facemask, reminds us that examples of intolerance and tensions over sexual ethics are everywhere.

One might also point to the threats to withhold communion from President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi over their stances on abortion.

But then, as Pope Francis recently reiterated, Catholic teaching remains that homosexual acts are sinful but also that sins are ubiquitous and can be redeemed.

It is precisely because we are all sinning all the time that we all must atone for our sins as part of building our relationship with God.

Many gay people still find such philosophical-theological formulations objectionable because they do not accept that homosexual acts are in any way wrong, and because the Catholic discourse is stigmatising and propagates gay shame.

Nevertheless, psychologically they can be easier to compute in a post-Christian society which demands unbounded kindness to those it sees as victims than encounters with Protestants who imply that the rest of us are destined for Hell.

Such worldviews upset at a highly visceral level and this may go some way to explaining the strength of reaction against so apparently mild-mannered and good-natured a person as Kate Forbes.

• Miles Pattenden is Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University and a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
• First published by ABC. Republished with permission of the author.

The diocese has announced the centre, opened in 1996, will close at the end of September and all staff will be made redundant. The grotto itself, founded by Canon Thomas Taylor in 1922, will remain open and will be served by the parish church of St Francis Xavier.

The visit of the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux will go ahead as planned at the end of August. Read more

Although the general assembly voted to "recognise and affirm the declarations of the Scottish government, UK parliament and others that we are experiencing a climate and ecological emergency" on Wednesday morning, a counter-motion to disinvest from oil and gas companies by 2020 was narrowly defeated. Read more

Following last year's review of hate crimes by retired judge Lord Bracadale, the church, in a submission to the Scottish government, asked for more discussion.

The church submission suggests holding to Catholic beliefs, particularly those in relation to marriage or sexuality, may soon be deemed "an attempt to stir up hatred".

Public consultation about the review considered a provision in Bracadale's report that protecting freedom of expression be included in any new legislation relating to stirring up offences.

The church welcomed the provision, saying today's "climate of heightened sensitivity" and the increasingly broad definitions of "hate crime" are putting freedom of speech and belief at risk.

Catholic Parliamentary Office Director Anthony Horan says it's important to guard against a situation where expressing or holding individual or collective opinions or beliefs will become a hate crime.

Therefore, to ensure that freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion are protected is necessary, he says.

"Some people might suggest that expressing the Catholic church's position on marriage or human sexuality could be an attempt to stir up hatred.

"This would obviously be wrong but, without room for robust debate and exchange of views, we risk becoming an intolerant, illiberal society."

Sectarianism "does not need to be specifically addressed and defined as a hate crime", Horan notes.

The Scottish Government is analysing the responses to the public consultation. It plans to consider them in shaping its Hate Crime Bill.

Source

• The Scottish Sun
• Christian Today
• Image: BBC

Exactly what a "provocative manner" entails is not described.

The supposedly restricted Police Scotland document obtained by the Scottish Herald on Sunday, using Freedom of Information legislation, lists restrictions on displaying a number of flags and potentially criminal symbols.

Besides the Vatican flag, flying the Israeli, the Palestinian, the Irish tricolour, the Catalan Senyera and the Basque Ikurriña flags provocatively could also cause problems for their bearers.

The restricted police document says: "Whilst the display of the following flags is not an offence in itself, if flown or displayed in a provocative manner, or altered, constitutes a common law Breach of the Peace or an offence under Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2000.

"If they are altered to contain a reference to a proscribed organisation, they may constitute an offence under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

"Irrespective of the above, the possession of these flags within a football ground may constitute a breach of ground regulations.

"As such, if these flags are seen, the stadium control room should be contacted; they will liaise with the football club and advise officers as to the appropriate course of action."

Officers can charge perpetrators with Breach of the Peace or an offence under Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licencing (Scotland) Act 2010 and, if convicted in court, offenders who fly the flags could face up to five years in prison.

The police document also includes pictures of the symbols and flags which "if flown in a provocative manner" could potentially be viewed as a crime, as well as descriptions of each flag's significance, references armed struggles and the perceived links to sectarianism.

The Vatican flag's inclusion in the police list has raised concerns within the Catholic Church.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: "It would be very concerning if the Vatican flag was in any circumstance deemed offensive.

"It has been flown proudly in Scotland on the occasion of two Papal visits without upset or incident and its use should not be restricted in any way."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "It is not an offence to fly the flag of the Vatican or any other country."

Source

• Catholic Herald
• Scottish Catholic Observer
• Image: FlagMan.ie

The letter, signed by 107 Catholics aged between 18 and 35, was addressed to Scottish Archbishop Leo Cushley.

Cushley is one of the bishops attending the synod on young people which began this week in Rome.

The letter notes "In some of the discourse surrounding the synod ...a trend of suggesting that difficult aspects of the Church's teaching, in matters of morals and matters of faith, need to be downplayed, or even put aside ... to be relevant to people's lives and sensitive to their difficulties."

The letter notes some discourse implies priests who hold to orthodox teaching are "out of touch with the lives of lay people, and of young people especially."

The signatories say this line of thought "is utterly in contradiction" to their lived experience.

"What made us become and/or remain Catholic, against ever increasing cultural pressure, are those aspects of the Faith that are uniquely Catholic, not things that can be found in social clubs, in NGOs or in political parties. What matters is precisely the Church's claim to truth," the letter says.

The signatories also say young Catholics are "inspired by the heroic virtue espoused by the Church, in opposition to the cynicism and pessimism of postmodern culture."

It also has praise for "priests who proclaim orthodox teaching."

They say these priests are bringing Christ's light into their lives.

In their opinion, the synod needs to concentrate on helping share the fullness of the Faith with young lapsed Catholics who have not rejected Catholicism but what they call "a poorly-understood shadow of it."

Source

• Scottish Catholic Observer
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Catholic Standard

Plans to outlaw the physical punishment of children would "criminalise parents", one of the church's top officials is quoted as saying.

He went on to say "it is not the role of the state to interfere" in parenting, apart from in "the most exceptional circumstances". Read more

It is the first joint faith Catholic-Jewish school in the world. Read more

Over 10,000 people take part in the annual Scottish Government study, which is designed to give a general view of the country's demographics.

While 51 per cent of Scots don't belong to any religion, just under 14 per cent of Scottish adults identify as being Catholic.

The Church of Scotland remains the most popular group with 24 per cent of those surveyed identifying as Presbyterian. Read more

Last week Paisley's Bishop John Keenan toured Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire on a double-decker bus, aiming to "bring faith issues to the high street."

The Mercy Bus - also known as "the church on wheels" - set off last Monday. During the week priests heard confessions on the top deck, while reading material, tea and coffee were provided on the lower deck.

Keenan says it was a "fantastic initiative and a wonderful example of evangelisation, which takes the church out into the world."

The idea for the Mercy Bus came from the Friends of Divine Mercy Scotland.

Spokeswoman Helen Border says they were inspired by Pope Francis's call to ‘Go out to the people and take the Church to them,'.

"Everyone is welcome."

Border says these days "many people are angry and upset, often because they've made the wrong choices and want to change. Stepping on board the bus could be the first step in changing their lives for the better."

On Saturday at the end of the tour, Keenan and Father Joe Burke celebrated Mass on the bus.

"I hope this venture will be the first of many similar initiatives which offer people a route back to a relationship with God," Keenan says.

Source

• CatholicNews.ie
• The Gazette
• Twitter

"This is the greatest migration of people into Europe since the Second World War," he said, referring to the influx of refugees from Syria.

"We are now facing something unprecedented since that time," he said.

"As a visible example of our willingness to help, I too would be happy to give a home to somebody fleeing war or oppression.

"Hopefully, we can find each family their own home. Scotland is a big country, populated by big people with big hearts."

A letter sent to Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon by Archbishop Philip Tartaglia on behalf of Scotland's 452 parishes offered to place parish resources at the service of those who are in the greatest need.

Continue reading

The 99-page McLellan Commission Report, published this week, described abuse as "the greatest challenge facing the whole Catholic Church in Scotland".

The commission was led by Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and former Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland.

He was invited to chair the commission by the Catholic bishops' conference in Scotland

The commission's report set out the findings of a critical review of safeguarding policy and made eight key recommendations.

It concluded that support for survivors of abuse must be the Church's absolute priority, and said that it had not been so in the past.

It condemned a culture of secrecy and cover-up that allowed abuse to remain hidden, and said that in seeking to avoid scandal, the Church had caused "scandal in a theological sense" to victims and to the wider Catholic population.

"There is lost ground to be made up," it said, adding that Mass attendance had declined because of Scottish Catholics' shame about the Church's response to abuse.

It acknowledged the hard work of many within the Church to improve safeguarding.

The report noted the promises of change, particularly following the resignation of Cardinal Keith O'Brien after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him by former seminarians.

But the commission said that the Church in Scotland "has not made significant structural changes" in terms of embedding safeguarding in ministry and theology.

It also criticised the "complications of church administration" that hampered the Church's efforts to deal consistently with abuse allegations, in particular the different authority structures that separated the bishops and religious congregations.

As the commission's report was delivered, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia offered a "profound" apology to victims of "criminal and sinful" abuse within the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The archbishop, who is the president of the Bishops' Conference for Scotland, also said the Church is "pained and shamed" by incidents of abuse that have taken place within it.

Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell, the bishop responsible for safeguarding, said the Church "fully accepted" the report's recommendations.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Scottish Catholic Media Office
• Image: Daily Record

The bill, which would have allowed those with terminal illnesses to seek the aid of a doctor to help end their lives, was defeated 82-36 in a free vote in the Scottish Parliament.

A Scottish parliamentary committee recently concluded that the bill contained "significant flaws" and opposed its general principles.

But the committee stated the full parliament should decide whether or not to throw out the proposed legislation.

The bill was presented to parliament by Green MSP Patrick Harvie.

He had agreed to take over the bill from MSP Margo MacDonald who died last year from Parkinson's Disease.

After the vote, Mr Harvie said: "I know many supporters of assisted suicide will now be hoping that the Lord Advocate issues prosecution guidance and that the Scottish government considers alternative approaches to the problem."

In 2010, the Scottish Parliament defeated an assisted suicide bill 85-16.

The latest bill was opposed by Muslim, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic leaders.

In January, Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, sparked controversy when he suggested the legislation is comparable to racist Nazi laws that paved the way for the Holocaust.

The Council of Imams Scotland wrote to Scottish MPs urging them to vote against the bill.

The Imams stated it is strictly against Islamic law to help terminate the "divine gift" of life.

Conservative MSP Dr Nanette Milne, a former anaesthetist and cancer researcher who sits on Holyrood's Health Committee, opposed the bill.

She said: "Personally, as a former health professional, the idea of actively and deliberately hastening death by assisting someone to die is deeply disturbing for me.

"And I share the view of many professional colleagues that to legislate for this would risk undermining patient trust in doctors and medical advice."

Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur said he supported the bill's general principles.

"The right to life is not the same as a duty to live. This is about providing dignity, respect and choice at the end of life."

Sources

• BBC
• Herald Scotland
• Image: Lifesitenews

A Church tribunal found that Fr Matthew Despard of St John Ogilvie in Lanarkshire had injured the reputation of the Church as well as clergy and lay people.

Already under suspension, he will be removed from his parish and will have to spend three months in penance.

The priest made the claims in a book he self-published in the Internet titled "Priesthood in Crisis".

Fr Despard claimed that sexual misconduct had been widespread in junior seminaries for decades.

He also said he had alerted Church authorities, but that nothing had been done.

In a letter to Fr Despard, the Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Toal, said: "The judges determined that of the 21 of the 26 charges brought against Fr Despard, five were not proven."

"In the majority of cases, the tribunal ruled that Fr Despard had injured the good reputation of a number of people, both lay and clergy."

Fr Despard did not take part in the tribunal, but was represented by a lawyer.

The bishop added: "The bishop regrets that a penal case had to be pursued against Fr Despard, but felt it necessary in order to vindicate the reputation of those wrongly accused by him."

Fr Despard will reportedly appeal against the tribunal's ruling.

When he was suspended, his parishioners launched a petition in protest.

Parishioners also boycotted a Mass celebrated by the diocese's apostolic administrator at St John Ogilvie.

Priesthood in Crisis, which appeared just after Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien resigned over sexual misconduct, was originally made available through Amazon.

It was withdrawn from sale by Amazon in the United Kingdom (although it remains available in the US) because of lawsuits threatened by individuals who were named in the book.

Sources

• Herald Scotland
• Catholic World News
• Catholic World News
• Image: Sunday Post

His feast day is commemorated with supermarket meat sales, green rivers, green beer, and (my favourite) parades.

But who was the real St Patrick?

Most people know that the missionary Patrick (Patricius or Pádraig) helped to bring Christianity to Ireland in the 5^th Century. Some may remember how his first visit to the island was as a slave.

Sadly, only a few may remember Patrick's opposition to structural injustice and his prophetic defense of victims of violence and human trafficking.

As with so many of our saints, Patrick's radical application of the Gospel has been domesticated and stripped of its challenging message.

Rather than witnessing to the prophetic and loving call of the God's mission, Patrick has been turned into a caricature to decorate commercial marketing schemes and Hallmark cards. Continue reading.

Kevin Glauber Ahern, PhD is an assistant professor of religious studies at Manhattan College. He served as the President of the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS-Pax Romana) and is Vice-President of the ICMICA-Pax Romana.

Source: Daily Theology

Image: Author's own

Father Patrick Lawson, who was removed from St Sophia's parish church, in Galston, Ayrshire, in September by the Bishop of Galloway, John Cunningham, has been granted legal aid to pursue the case that could establish employment rights for priests across Britain.

"An application has been lodged on Patrick's behalf with the tribunal," said his solicitor, Cameron Fyfe. "He is breaking new ground as there has never been a decision by a UK court on this. If he is successful, it would open the door to other priests in a similar position."

The Catholic church's director of communications, Peter Kearney, says the application is inappropriate: "For such a claim to be made, there would need to be an employer/employee relationship. Since the relationship between a priest and his diocese is not one of employment, reference to an employment tribunal would not be possible."

The application is the latest move in a long-running dispute. Read more

In one of a handful of scriptural references, he is the apostle who tells Jesus that five loaves and two fishes won't feed 5,000 people; a miracle soon proves otherwise.

Like other widely honoured saints, Andrew himself defies the laws of finitude by appealing to so many people in so many places.

Thirtieth November is a big feast day for Scotland, Romania, Cyprus, the Greek port of Patras and for Christians in Istanbul; in 13 days' time, the same feast will be celebrated in places where the old church calendar is kept, such as Russia and Ukraine.

And whenever it is observed, the annual feast day of Saint Andrew brings reminders that the first apostle of Jesus Christ, one of two fisherman brothers, can still create political waves.

Take Scotland. Andrew has been that country's official patron saint since 1320, and he was venerated there for centuries before that.

The diagonal white cross of Saint Andrew was flying defiantly in Edinburgh today, although yesterday's helicopter crash in Glasgow cast a pall over the commemorations.

Alex Salmond, head of the Scottish Nationalists, used the national holiday to stir patriotic feeling ahead of next year's independence ballot. Even his reaction to the helicopter crash mentioned the saint; he said today was a good moment to take pride in Scotland's resilience.

Meanwhile David Cameron has hoisted the Scottish emblem over his prime-ministerial residence in London and issued a Saint Andrew's message with the opposite intention: to remind the Scots of how well they have done as Brits. Continue reading.

Source: The Economist

Image: Form Ministry

Cardinal O'Brien, who resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in February after unidentified priests alleged he acted inappropriately toward them, objected to a church review of abuse allegations commissioned in 2011, said Conti said in a letter to the Catholic newspaper The Tablet.

The Tablet quoted Conti saying that all but one member of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland had agreed in recent years for diocesan case files to be reviewed but this did not go ahead due to the cardinal's objection.

The Catholic Church in Scotland said O'Brien's withdrawal from the audit of historical sex abuse allegations ended the project.

In a statement the Church said that a decision was taken in 2011 to commission an independent academic analysis of statistics relating to historic abuse from 1952 to 2012. It said that the project ran until 2012, when then president of the Bishops' Conference, Cardinal O'Brien, withdrew.

Sources

The Tablet

AP/Washington Post

The Telegraph

Image: PA/The Telegraph