Scotland’s Catholic Church must change its culture and theology to protect children in its care, says the Protestant minister asked to review its safeguards.
Dr Andrew McLellan announced the remit and membership of a new commission to investigate how the Catholic Church handles abuse.
The former Moderator of the Church of Scotland believes his own faith can offer some spiritual and practical solutions on the issue.
The former chief inspector of prisons said: “I am not here representing the Church of Scotland, but my own church has learned a lot about helping parishes to ‘own’ and to love safeguarding.”
“That is part of the culture change, which the Catholic Church needs to learn as well.”
Dr McLellan said his church has “done a fairly significant theological piece of work about balancing the responsibility of a Christian organisation to forgive against the responsibility of a Christian organisation to protect”.
“We have tried to think that through. It has helped us to form policies in our church.”
“And that kind of thinking is very important for the Catholic Church to do as well.”
The former moderator stressed he did not expect the Catholic Church to simply copy the Church of Scotland.
Dr McLellan said: “I am hoping that they will themselves choose to change the culture and theology of their church.”
The McLellan Commission is not investigating individual cases of historic or current abuse.
But it wants to hear from those who have been affected by such issues, as it tries to make protection mechanisms more robust.
The commission is one of several safeguarding-related initiatives announced by Scotland’s bishops.
Commission members include a senior police officer, a journalist and an MP.
Its report is due next year.
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