Scottish Catholic Observer

The ordination of Fr Len Black at St Mary’s Greenock is an historic first for the Catholic Church in Scotland that will always be remembered. Pope Benedict XVI’s prescient vision of the ordinariate has now flowered in Scotland, and Fr Black will surely not be the last to convert under this auspice.

While the extension of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham to members of the Scottish Episcopal Church who wish to come home to Rome may not have been widely known until this point, it is certain that much more will be heard of it in the months and years to come.

This is because many Scottish Episcopalians are coming to realise, as are increasing numbers of young Catholics, that the rigid truths of the Catholic Church are the one true bulwark against the rising tides of immoral secularism.

It is also worth noting that the Scottish Church had already, in recent years, welcomed with open arms members of the Anglican Communion who wished to convert to Catholicism. Their numbers have included former Anglican clergy who are now happily at work in Scottish parishes. In this there is no doubt a splash of good old-fashioned Scottish hospitality but also an understanding that the doors of our Church are always open to men and women of good faith.

As ever though, tribute must be paid to Pope Benedict, whose forward-thinking plan for the ordinariate will likely allow many thousands of Anglicans from all over the world, to convert peacefully, happily and in ever-increasing numbers to the universal Catholic Church.

News from Ireland is grim. It may be hard for many Scots Catholics to hear, given their ancestral attachments, but the emerald isle is fast becoming a viciously anti-Catholic country. The Irish government’s response to the recent Cloyne Report, on the clergy abuse scandal, is worrying in the extreme. If, as planned, it puts in place unprecedented legislation intended to force priests to break the seal of the confessional it will prove that the Irish political and media elites are now firmly swayed by secularists, many of whom are bent on the destruction of the Church.

There were sins committed by Irish clergy and hierarchy on the abuse issue but it is now clear that secularists are determined to use that scandal as a stick to drive the Church from Ireland, as St Patrick once drove out the snakes. The fact that such a completely unacceptable step as trying to enforce the breaking of the confessional seal is even being considered shows just how profound the threat is to the Catholic Church in Ireland, and across Europe. For make no mistake, if this move is successful in Ireland, how long before other countries are targeted?

In such a hostile atmosphere, we Catholics must hold ourselves to the very highest standards of behaviour so that our enemies are unable to exploit any failings.

PIC: MARK CAMPBELL