28 years on, a more secular Scotland set to greet the Pope

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 14:57

STANDING on the back of a Leyland truck specially converted with bullet-proof glass into the 'Pope-mobile' John Paul II looked out at the largest gathering of Scots in the nation's history.

Sweltering in 72 degrees, 250,000 Catholics in Bellahouston Park began in unison to sing a song in tribute to Bonnie Prince Charlie, "Will ye no come back again".

As the then Archbishop of Glasgow, Thomas Winning began to explain the background to the song and the identity of the Young Pretender, the Pope interrupted and said: 'Yes. I had tea with him and his mother in London.' As Winning would later recall: "At the time I thought: 'so much for Papal infallibility'."

If the words to the song were a prayer, it has been answered. The Pope has 'came back again', a different figure will inhabit the white cassock, and he will find a different nation to that which greeted his predecessor.

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In 1982 we could still lay claim to the title of a Christian country, today, however the papal plane will touch down in what is arguably 'Secular Scotland'.

The evidence is startling. Where before a quarter of a million Scots Catholics flocked to the papal mass at Bellahouston, 28 years later Pope Benedict XVI should be happy if he attracts 100,000 and with reports of parishes handing back spare tickets it could yet be a lot less.

In the intervening years all the statistics that monitor the health of the Catholic Church in Scotland - as well as the Church of Scotland - have been in sharp decline.

The Catholic population has dropped by 18 per cent to 667,017, baptisms are down 39 per cent and marriages by 63 per cent. Vocations to the priesthood, have, in particular, taken a battering, down 79 per cent from 159 in 1982 to just 33 in 2008, the most recent figures listed, Although there are signs of a mild improvement.

This year the Church will have nine new seminarians who will commence training this Autumn, the highest in a generation. (There has also been the "Benedict Bounce" - since Pope Benedict was elected in 2005 the numbers training have gone up by 50 per, from 24 to 37.)

Today 72 per cent of those who would classify themselves as Catholics do not attend Mass still, at least those who do are digging deeper when the plate is passed round. The average weekly donation in the mid-eighties was 67p, today, for example, even in the poorest parish in Paisley the sum has risen to 1.20 while in the richest it is 5.45.

Meanwhile membership of the Humanist Society of Scotland has risen by over 700 per cent, and they predict that in 2010, their celebrants will conduct more weddings than the Catholic Church.Next week, ahead of the papal visit, they will launch at advertising campaign insisting that over two million Scots are "good without God".

So how did organised religion lose its way? If Catholic bishops with their mitre and crook are the shepherds of their flock, why have so many sheep bolted under their watch? The answer is complicated and separates into changes in society and in the Church.

In the past Catholics were tightly knit through fear of an unsympathetic Protestant nation. The Church provided both spiritual sustenance and a social life through lay association and dances. The generation who brought their children to picnic before Mass at Bellahouston Park in 1982 were familiar with this world. Yet their children now grown will not have met their partners at Catholic dances.

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Bellahouston Park in 1982 was the point at which Catholics banished the ghetto mentality of the past, They strode proudly past the anti-Catholic rhetoric. An indication of how far Scotland has changed is the fact that, in 1982, the president of the Scottish National Party, William Wolfe declared that the Pope was not welcome as Scotland was a 'protestant country'. A statement for which he was forced to resign. Yet as full members of society Catholics are as liable to be blown by the prevailing winds anyone else.

The last 30 years has seen a radical change in society away from the days when commitment was an expected part of adult life, be it to job, spouse, union or football team, to the society Scots of all faiths and none inhabit today where options are encouraged to be kept open. In the opinion of John Haldane, the Catholic philosopher at St Andrews University there are three powerful forces at work in secular society: materialism, individualism and hedonism. "We've seen a shift away from a society that valued wisdom and happiness to one that craves instant gratification," he said. It is not just church attendances in all denominations that have slumped, rates of union membership and that of political parties have also tumbled.

The Rt Rev John Christie, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said: "Whereas once 'joining the church' was a rite of passage, now it's a sign of a more explicit religious intention. The change in the statistics is evidence of that change of culture."

The irony is that in the Archdiocese of Glasgow, Scotland's largest concentration of Catholics, Archbishop, then later Cardinal Thomas Winning, attempted to use the papal visit as a springboard to a deeper, stronger Church. In 1983 he launched an ambitious pastoral plan which attempted to move practising Catholics away from simply turning up each week to establishing basic Christian communities who lived their faith more fully in their daily life, assisting their neighbours and community. For 18 years, until his death in 2001, he struggled to convince both priests and laity of its worth.It was quickly shelved by his successor, Archbishop Mario Conti.

So has the Catholic Church in Scotland failed? Sister Roseann Ready, who runs Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative thinks not. "People say: 'I was raised a Catholic, I thought about it and left the Church'. I was raised a Catholic, I thought about and I became a religious sister. Whose view is the most valid? We are going through an age where anything that involves commitment and self-sacrifice, of putting yourself out for the greater good, is losing memberships."

While there are those who favour who feel the use of music in Church could be improved, others argue that a key problem for the Catholic Church in recent decades is the quality of the clergy, with a number wishing to be a friend instead of a leader. "They need to rediscover a language that can lift people out of the banality of their lives," said Prof Haldane. "A language that has greater religious depth and spiritual power."

There are cradle Catholics who still hope to reach the grave with their faith intact, but who admit to hanging on by their fingertips.

One retired teacher who has fond memories of Bellahouston in the heat haze of 1982, will not be returning next week, though he has a strong admiration for Benedict XVI. In fact, he talks of "keeping his head down" as Catholics did in the past.

"The Church I love has been reduced to a smutty music hall joke," he explained. "We all suffer from the insults and you cannot underestimate the hurt people feel about the arrogance of Church authorities. Look at Ireland and that IRA priest: a mass murderer of members of his own congregation is spirited away and protected by the Church! Can it get any worse?"

The sins of the Fathers, regardless of their nationality or jurisdiction, continue to wound the laity in Scotland such is the price of membership to the universal Catholic Church.