Keith O’Brien, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has been accused of being offensive, obnoxious and of inflaming ethnic tensions by calling for the re-Christianisation of his country. “The basic core faith in Scotland I would maintain is Christianity,” he said, almost defensively, in a radio interview. Given that 70% of Scots say they believe in God, it’s hardly cause for a holy war. In fact, beside the extreme sentiments uttered by another famous cleric and currently being aired before a packed London court room, the cardinal’s words appear quite benign.
He reminds us that Christianity has been present in Scotland since St Ninian landed at Whithorn in 397AD, but he stops well short of diminishing other faiths. Not once does he preach hatred of the great world religions, or death or destruction to those who worship differently to him. Not once does he rant about “bleeding the enemy” and “black magic” and spreading Catholicism “by the sword”. No, compared with Abu Hamza and his brand of devotion, Cardinal O’Brien is the very model of moderation.
In hard-line Catholic quarters he used to be regarded as something of a lefty, relatively rebellious on gay priests, and less orthodox than the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, who many Catholics thought was a more acceptable successor to the late Cardinal Tom Winning. However, as Scotland’s most senior Catholic, O’Brien now apparently agrees with Rome on most things and has grown impatient with “anything goes” liberals.
Make no mistake about it, when he talks about re-Christianising Scotland, he means re-Christianising according to strict Catholic teaching. And Scotland means everyone, not just those claimed by the Catholic Church. And that is what gets people’s backs up. How can the cardinal presume to put himself forward as our moral guardian when a) he speaks for a minority, and b) even within the dwindling community of regular church-goers, his opinions have a fairly tenuous connection with reality? This is not the first time he has provoked an outcry with seemingly innocuous remarks. When he was elevated in 2003 he said in an early mission statement that he wanted to save Scotland from itself, stem the tide of secularism that threatened to engulf us and protect the sanctity of our marriages and our families.
But if Scotland were to reintroduce “faith-based values in society”, as advocated by O’Brien, they would be values unrecognisable to all but a rump of the most devout Catholics. Imagine if all Scottish schools, for example, were governed by the rulings of the Catholic Church. To start with, they would be segregated, Catholic children through one gate, the rest sequestered out of sight. Teachers would be vetted for suspected homosexual leanings, since homosexuality is an “unnatural” lifestyle incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
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Any overt references to homosexual themes would be banned under the repeal of Section 28. Sex education would become the preserve of the biology department again and hormone-fuelled adolescents would be told to abstain and offered text books instead of practical advice, free condoms and morning-after pills.
The Scottish executive’s national sexual health strategy, described as “state-sponsored sex abuse” by O’Brien, would of course be abolished. In medicine, embryo research, which kindles hope among sufferers of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other killer diseases, would be outlawed. All civil partnerships would presumably be automatically annulled, and gay couples who have satisfied the adoption agencies’ stringent criteria would have to give back their children. There would be zero tolerance for women priests, gay priests and married priests.
Oh, and shops would close on Sundays.
Far from reflecting Christian principles as they are generally understood — being kind to one another, loving thy neighbour, persecuting nobody, cherishing individuality, embracing progress — the new Catholic order would promote a kind of inequality and intolerance not seen here for centuries.
People may be culturally Christian (and, in Scotland, the predominant culture is Protestant). They celebrate Christian festivals and observe Christian rites. They sing carols in December and rail against the sort of political correctness that bans Christmas cards and does away with school assemblies. Most Scots still get married in churches; most funerals are still conducted by church ministers. Christianity has a historical and influential place in modern Scotland, but, increasingly, people are not religiously Christian.
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This possibly, but not necessarily, affects their concept of morality. It must have been easier to distinguish right from wrong in the days when moral authority came direct from the pulpit. Without such certainties, people may lack the respect for traditional institutions that a more obedient society possessed, and the restraint imposed by a more clear-cut code of behaviour.
Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, agrees with Cardinal O’Brien that restoring Christian ethics would prevent a further slide in standards, which he said had dismayed his fellow Muslims. Many Muslims, he said, were surprised when they first came to Scotland because they thought it was a Christian country, “but didn’t see much evidence of that”.
Once, 1.3m Scots were members of the Church of Scotland; now it is only 536,000, a drop of 60% since 1960. The Catholic Church has lost 19% of its congregation here in 10 years.
We can’t turn the clock back, however, nor should we want to. Scotland may indeed have a moral vacuum, but it cannot be filled by the social conservatism, disguised as religion, of any creed, be it Catholic or Muslim. If we look around for solutions to contemporary moral dilemmas we are not immediately drawn to religion.
Some religious leaders may be inspiring — Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for instance, and arguably Pope John Paul II. Some inspirational leaders may be religious — Nelson Mandela springs to mind. But given the damage that is inflicted on the world in the name of religion, it is understandable that we should seek a secular response to the moral debate.
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Countries we admire for their strong social conscience are largely secular. Secularity has much to recommend it, not least the generous platform it gives to the figureheads of ancient, minority religions.