Peter Ross: College closure means all roads lead to Rome for future priests

Published on Saturday 23 May 2009 18:59

MARTIN Kane is not yet a priest but he is experiencing turbulence. For five years, Kane, 43, has called Scotus College, Scotland's last remaining seminary, his home. But a few days before the end of Lent, Scottish bishops decided to give it up. Priests have trained in Scotland since 1714; when Scotus closes at the end of term, that tradition will end.

For Kane, who must now move to Ireland for his final year of training, this means considerable upheaval. He is dismayed and believes seminarians trained outside Scotland will be less effective on their return as priests; taking them away from the culture to which they are expected to minister means they will find it harder to develop the necessary empathy and skills. "If it's not important, why have we been doing it for 300 years?" he asks. "We should be in the business of building church up not running it down."

Scotus College is in the well-to-do Glasgow district of Bearsden. The noon peace is broken only by the wind in the saughs and the chime of an ice cream van. The college is based around an old mansion adjoined by a chapel, a modern building with glass walls and, suspended from the ceiling, Christ sculpted in fibreglass and gold leaf. Students and staff, who live on the premises, pray here first thing in the morning and again before tea. It will be sold along with the rest of the property and could be demolished.

Scotus is being closed in part because of the small number of students – nine compared with 55 when the college opened in 1993, each costing close to 100,000 to train over a six-year course. But the main reason for the closure is that the church needs the three teaching staff to return to work in parishes. "In Scotland this year there is no-one being ordained a priest, not one person," says Father William McFadden, rector of Scotus. "Priests will die, priests will retire, but they cannot be replaced if no one is being ordained."

Recruitment of priests cannot have been helped by the various sexual abuse scandals which have rocked the church. In the latest, a long-running inquiry has found that abuse of children in boys' institutions in Ireland was "endemic". Yet the so-called "priest shortage" isn't necessarily the crisis it appears; the Catholic church insists that as fewer people attend mass there isn't the need for as many priests. That makes sense, but if the last seminary must be closed in order to free up three men then it's hard to escape the conclusion that times are hard.

Future Scottish applicants for the priesthood will study at the Scots College in Rome. The last day of Scotus is 21 June when Kane and another man will be ordained as deacons. When I visit, the students are preparing for exams. It's a fascinating course, taking in philosophy and psychology, death, heaven, hell and the day of judgment. So when one student says, in relation to the college closing, "it's not the end of the world", he really does know what he's talking about.

The atmosphere here is scholarly – a daily ritual of mass and class. There's an intensity to the relationships between students, there being so few and their life together being a sort of exploration of self. In a process known as "discernment" everyone is constantly asking themselves whether they are right for the job and the job right for them. The drop-out rate is around two in three.

Scotus College is huge in relation to the numbers it has to accommodate. They are rattling about like pennies in a collection box. The common room is a sort of Virgin Mary Celeste, deserted but with signs of recent habitation – a can of flat Irn-Bru, a nibbled Swiss roll, piano sheet music lying open at Eric Clapton's Tears In Heaven.

Scotus's students are older than I expected, mostly in their thirties and forties, and dressed in hoodies rather than cowls. In this male environment, the only woman is the dinner lady. Lunch is a highly appropriate synthesis of Italian and Scottish cuisine – chips and macaroni cheese. Grace is said before and after each meal; the students stand facing a crucifix on the wall.

Not so long ago, seminaries were full of 18-year-olds straight from school. Now the trend is for men entering the priesthood after they have lived a bit. Even the youngest seminarian, Peter Morris, is 24, a veteran of bar work in Buckie, who says, "God has always been a major player in my life." These are regular guys with personal histories and Celtic season tickets. In the recent past there have been widowers with children. I get the feeling that often there is a moment of crisis which precipitates a deepening of religious belief.

Stuart Reynolds, 43, is in second year. He used to work for the Royal Bank of Scotland but came to feel straitjacketed in such a profit-driven business. Though raised as a Catholic, he fell away from his faith for eight or nine years. His parents had split up and he took it hard. To escape the pain he began gambling on horse racing and became addicted then got into debt. He credits God with helping him recover from his addiction and within six weeks of quitting he was back regularly at Mass. Now he works with a drug rehab centre and talks about how the darkness of his past, and his redemption, help him help others.

Reynolds and his fellow students are historical figures – the last men to be trained as priests in Scotland. They are more interested in the future, though, and how the church goes forward. It's sometimes said the priesthood would attract more candidates if they opened it up to women and ended the celibacy rule. The students I meet think this is worth discussing, but it wouldn't have made much difference to their own decisions. They are committed, optimistic and eager to serve.

The only fly in their anointment is the end of Scotus, but Peter Morris believes the seminary could be resurrected. "There may be almost a revolution," he says, a light in his soulful brown eyes. "Christianity could come back in a very big way in Scotland."