Stephen McGinty: End of a colourful tenure for Mario Conti

AS Mario Conti, the incumbent Archbishop of Glasgow, gives way to his successor next week, Stephen McGinty ponders his achievements and failings over his decade in the role

MARIO Conti is in limbo. Well, to be more precise, this morning he is actually in Tuscany preparing to receive the freedom of the town of Treppignana, birthplace of his grandmother. What I mean by Mario Conti being in “limbo” is that the Archbishop of Glasgow is on the verge of retirement but hasn’t yet reached that quiet, restful shore. A week today, his successor, bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley will officially take over the crook and mitre of the archbishopric in a lavish installation mass at Glasgow Cathedral attended by the First Minister as well as the great and the good and, I’ll wager, some of the positively sinful of Glasgow.

Officially, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, limbo doesn’t actually exist. The concept of a tranquil world where unbaptised babies resided, excluded from the official presence of God, but in a state of natural happiness was invented by medieval theologians as a way of smoothing over the doctrinal harshness of St Augustine, who had carelessly condemned them to hell. But it is a term appropriate for Conti’s current state, no longer making any meaningful decisions that might effect Scotland’s largest collection of Catholics, but having not yet reached his just reward.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

So now would appear to be the perfect time to look back on his decade in charge and ponder his achievements and failings.

Firstly, the difference in financial acumen between Conti, who is now 78-years-old, and his predecessor, Thomas Winning is like day and night or prosperity and penury. Where Winning almost bankrupted the diocese, Conti has applied the diligence expected of the son of a shopkeeper to keep track of every pound and penny. Where Winning announced the diocese would financially assist women considering abortions, without having a single penny set aside, assuming that God, or at least someone else, would provide, Conti refused to begin a £5 million refurbishment of Glasgow Cathedral without having the entire sum in the bank.

He was controversial in bringing into the archdiocese professional fundraisers who took a cut of every pound raised but helped revive many parishes by ensuring they retained any extra sum collected on top of their set target. As a consequence the archdiocese now has a lump sum of £4m wisely invested, the interest from which is funding a raft of projects and initiatives.

The fund for the support of retired and sick priests has also been refreshed.

On a pastoral level he has succeeded in closing 11 parishes, roughly 10 per cent, without having silver coins hurled at him or being branded a “Judas”, a fate that befell Winning, but, frankly, he could have closed many more. His successor will, more than likely, face the difficult task of closing around 30-40 per cent of parishes during his tenure as the flood of priests set to retire are replaced by a trickle of new recruits and attendance continues to shrink.

On a civic level, Conti has elevated ecumenism in the Catholic Church in Glasgow to a height not previously seen and been welcomed with open arms at the Glasgow University Memorial Chapel where an annual mass is now said.

When it comes to his public utterances, Conti has been like those medieval theologians concerned by the sharpness and lack of compassion of Augustine’s judgement and, though unwilling to go against the saint’s teachings, anxious to shade them in a more compassionate light. His support for the Catholic Church’s official teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts and his defence of marriage as a state that can only exist between a man and a woman is robust, but he would never be so intemperate in his choice of words as Cardinal Keith O’Brien has been.

In fact, it is interesting to ponder how different relations between the Catholic Church and the Scottish Government would currently be if the red hat had landed in Glasgow, on Conti’s head, instead of swinging back to the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh. For, although little known and, perhaps, of interest only to close observers of catholic affairs, back in 2003 it was widely assumed, not least by the man himself, that Conti would become the next cardinal, following the death of Winning in 2001.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The reason for holding such a presumption was that prior to his elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals, O’Brien was one of the most liberal archbishops in the Catholic Church. He had openly questioned the church’s teachings on contraception, pondered the issue of female priests and made enemies of the Curia by describing the Archbishop of Milan, Dionigi Tettamanzi as a “wee fat guy”.

In 1999, at a synod in Rome, O’Brien had suggested Timothy Radcliffe, master general of the Dominican Order as his favoured candidate for Pope. Radcliffe had argued that the church should not reject but do more to welcome divorcees, women who have had abortions and gay people.

In private Conti was stunned that the red hat had not come to him but to his fellow archbishop, whose orthodoxy was, at times, open to question.

The fact that, prior to travelling to Rome to receive the red hat, O’Brien had to make a public statement of fidelity to the church’s teaching made some people question whether a genuine mistake had been made with the appointment. An ecclesiastical clerical mix-up. The irony is that, having been appointed as cardinal, O’Brien has “played for the shirt” so to speak, all vestiges of the quiet, warm, liberal have fallen away to be replaced by dogmatic, angry and controversial public statements that are often at odds with his private character but which have earned him new found respect among the conservatives in Rome.

By comparison, during his decade in charge of the archdiocese of Glasgow, Conti has managed to avoid making a single controversial or inflammatory statement. While this may be down to his quiet, careful character, it is also a testament to his ability to try, where possible, to win people over. Where he has singularly failed is with Scotland’s historians, who remain up in arms at the decision to transfer historical papers and documents from the catholic archives in Edinburgh to a new home in Aberdeen University. Once again the decision, in Conti’s view, was financially prudent and backed by the Bishop’s Conference, though it is being framed by his opponents as a testament to his own ego and desire for a lasting legacy. This week’s issue of The Tablet carries a lengthy article on the whole affair.

Yet it will be interesting to see how the new Archbishop, Philip Tartaglia, uses his position. From my experience, his controversial comments about the late David Cairns were surprising. In public he is usually extremely cautious in what he says. For example when I interviewed him for The Scotsman prior to the Pope’s visit to Scotland in 2010 he not only asked for the questions in advance but prepared written responses that he then planned to read out at the interview.

Yet it would be unwise for critics to expect him to be more quiet in his defence of the Catholic Church and her teachings. The archbishop elect believes that Scotland is entering into a dangerous culture war in which, in the not too distant future, priests could be arrested for preaching the church’s teaching on homosexuality. Many will dismiss this as a gross over-reaction but Tartaglia has quoted approvingly Francis George, Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, who said: “I shall die in my bed, but my successor shall die in prison.”

The fact is that the Catholic Church knows that it has lost the battle over same-sex marriage. The main goal now is to secure legislation that will protect its teaching and they have a genuine right to be fearful. The time will come when people will want to know why public money is being spent on catholic schools which teach pupils ideas about the sinfulness of homosexuality that the public has now, largely, completely rejected.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

At 61-years-old, Philip Tartaglia is aware that, God willing, he will be in his post for a minimum of 14 years and that, if a week is a long time in politics, he faces an eternity. While his principal role is the re-evangelisation of Glasgow, to bring people back to the teachings of Jesus Christ, he also knows that he will be expected to defend the Catholic Church and its current position. Opponents would be wise not to misjudge him.