Safeguarding in the Catholic Church means doing everything in our power to try and prevent abuse; firstly, by having a safe system of recruitment for clergy, religious, employees and volunteers; which includes PVG checks, references and training for all engaged in working with children and protected adults; and secondly, by having a reporting system so people can come forward with disclosures and concerns, be listened to and have their disclosures acted upon.
A central part of safeguarding is care for survivors so that their wounds are tended and they are kept safe from further harm while we try to accompany them to safe paths of healing. Last October, we were pleased to welcome to the Diocese Fr Dominic Allain of ‘Grief to Grace’ who made two presentations, one to clergy and one to the public on his outreach healing ministry to abuse survivors. ‘Grief to Grace’ has helped many abuse survivors to find help and healing, as the testimonies on their website report: https://www.grieftograceuk.org/ .If you would be interested in attending a Grief to Grace retreat in Scotland next year, please contact our Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser in confidence on 07939 486290.
It is the responsibility of all of us, whether clergy or lay to try and reach out to those who have been harmed or abused by members of the Church, by their families or by any other person, whilst respecting that many will understandably feel unable to engage with us. Nevertheless, we can still pray for and care about them. It is also our responsibility to remain vigilant and to do everything in our power to keep our communities safe.
We are appalled by reports of abuse from around the world and of cover-ups by some bishops and cardinals. We in this diocese remain committed to doing everything in our power to try and help survivors and to foster a culture where children and vulnerable adults are protected.
In Scotland and in this diocese, we have worked to seek out and adopt best practice in safeguarding. When the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland (BCOS) accepted in full the 2015 recommendations from the review into safeguarding chaired by Dr Andrew McLellan, they established an Independent Review Group (IRG) chaired by Baroness Helen Liddell to monitor the Church’s progress in implementing the McLellan Commission recommendations. One of the McLellan Commission recommendations was that there should be external scrutiny of the Church’s safeguarding practices and the Bishops agreed that each year for four years there should be an independent audit of safeguarding practice in two of the eight Scottish dioceses. The first two dioceses to be audited were the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh and Galloway Diocese and their external audit reports were published in January 2020. The dioceses of Aberdeen and Motherwell have also now been audited and their audit reports published. You can read the published audit reports on the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland website https://www.bcos.org.uk/ .
In this Diocese we have taken careful note of the external audit reports and the recommendations made by the external auditors and we prepared a strategic management plan to implement them. Most of the external auditors’ recommendations have now been implemented in this Diocese where applicable. Our goal is that the rest will be adopted by the end of this year. During the Coronavirus lockdown our Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser, collaborated with the National Safeguarding Co-ordinator and the Safeguarding Advisers of the other seven Scottish dioceses to prepare a ‘toolkit’ of safeguarding policies, procedures and guidance notes on best practice. The members of the ‘toolkit working group’ have spent many hours on Zoom during the Coronavirus lockdown discussing and sharing best practice and agreeing a set of policies. The group were grateful for a presentation given to them by a Chief Superintendent in Police Scotland Public Protection Unit to help them with this work which will assist in meeting another of the McLellan recommendations of consistency in safeguarding practice across Scotland.
In 2019, in the interests of transparency and accountability, the Scottish Bishops published an independent statistical review of all historical abuse cases reported in the Scottish Catholic Church covering the period from 1943 to 2005. This involved reviewing all clergy and religious case files. The statistics were subjected to an independent statistical analysis and can be found on the BCoS web-site:
This completed an audit they published in 2013 of all allegations of abuse disclosed in the period between 2006 and 2012. These two audits make public the figures for all allegations of abuse we have on record; they relate to the whole of the Catholic Church in Scotland, diocesan and religious; and they are available on the Bishops’ Conference website. The Bishops committed to publishing such data for the whole of Scotland annually from 2013 and have done so on the Bishops’ Conference website.
At the same time, our own diocese is committed to transparency and accountability, to mandatory reporting to the police of all disclosures of abuse, and to action against anyone responsible for abuse or cover up.
We have published below the hard copy annual safeguarding audits we have carried out since we began auditing in 2005. In relation to this diocese, since the inception of the diocese in 1947 we have received 10 disclosures of the sexual abuse of a minor. In one further case, the age of the victim was unknown. The 11 offences alleged were all reported to have been committed between 1964 and 2000. Most of the alleged perpetrators are dead. All allegations have been reported to the police and the decision about whether or not to proceed with any such disclosure always rests with the police and the prosecuting authorities. The Safeguarding Team in this Diocese are committed to doing everything we can to create a culture of safeguarding within the Church and we will continue to devote our time to this work going forward.
As set out above, the Church in Scotland has a mandatory reporting policy. This means that if an allegation of abuse is received, it is immediately reported to the police. Our goal in all the work we are doing is that any abuse, historic or otherwise, will be met with justice, accountability and transparency, and our people’s trust in the Church be restored and assured. The procedures described above, together with the vigilance of those involved in parishes, help us ensure everyone feels safe when coming to Mass, services, groups or social events.
Bishop John and the Diocesan Safeguarding Team are grateful for all the hard work done by our Parish Co-ordinators, Trainers and Volunteers. The dedication and motivation of our parish communities continues to raise awareness of our safeguarding culture and highlights our shared responsibility in meeting our duty of care to all in our Diocesan family.
The updated Manual incorporates norms issued on 9 May 2019 by Pope Francis for the whole Church for the combat of sexual abuse. These can be found at:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio-20190507_vos-estis-lux-mundi.pdf
Speaking on the Pope’s behalf, Cardinal Ouellet announced the procedures on the Vatican News website: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2019-05/cardinal-ouellet-on-motu-proprio-vos-estis-lux-mundi.html “First of all, the obligation is for every diocese” in the Church to establish “public stable, and easily accessible systems” for reporting abuse”. He also noted the obligation of clerics and religious to report abuse; the extension of the definition of abuse to include “harassment or violence through the abuse of authority”; and the inclusion of cases of abuse of religious women on the part of clerics, or abuse of seminarians or new clerics by their superiors.
“Finally, but no less important”, the Cardinal said, “is having codified the procedures that hold Bishops and Religious Superiors accountable for their actions, not only in cases of abuse committed by them, but also in cases of their direct omissions to interfere with or evade” civil or ecclesiastical investigations of abuse.
Cardinal Ouellet insisted, however, that Bishops should “absolutely not” feel they are under observation or suspicion. “We know that thanks to God almost all Bishops, like priests and religious, are men who seek to follow the example of Jesus Christ in the daily life of testifying to His Gospel”. But, he said, “Where there is a difficulty, we must confront it, especially if a bishop is involved”.