Pope Francis asked us last week to look at divorce through the eyes of children. It would also be instructive to look at our Scottish bishops through the eyes of children, if you like, but more importantly through the eyes of those between twenty and nowadays about sixty. No teenagers of course, who see only old men with funny hats. (for cardinals, make that Italianate old men with spectacles and funny hats).
It’s quite a sight. Firstly, there’s the Elastoplast Evangelists, like the Bishops of Aberdeen, Dunkeld and Galloway . Import clerics from anywhere you can find them, even India in the case of Dunkeld. Anything to keep the status quo , and the position of the Tridentine priest going, with its devastating effect on the provision of the Eucharist throughout the world. Two of them have told us it’s because Scotland is now “a mission country”. Nobody seems to have asked them why.
In the Central Belt, we have Bishop Toal and CurryPowderGate , together with the suppression of a book,and the author punished by a church court. The teenagers will know all about Edinburgh and Cardinal O’Brien .
Archbishop Cushley and Bishop Keenan are, rather belatedly ,reviving devotion to Margaret Sinclair and Our Lady of Paisley , but not with any obvious practical attempt to relate this to providing the Eucharist for those who do not have it, despite the Pope’s suggestions. Archbishop Tartaglia will be busy later on this year with the vocations drive. That’s right.
One can look for cultural parallels to explain this entire situation. There is drama and a certain misguided sense of glory in the captain going down with the ship. Normally, however, this occurs when the crew and passengers have been rescued.
There is another cultural parallel. Sunni hate Shiites . The former feel it didn’t matter who took over after Mahomet; the latter disagree. This has produced the phenomenon of the suicide bomber. Each side’s suicide bombers feel spiritually both justified and glorified by eliminating hundreds of the other at a bus-stop.
It is difficult to find any kind of spiritual justification or glory in bishops not acting on the Pope’s advice to ask for ordination to be extended. It is an actuarial fact that failure to do this will put a bomb under the Church as we know it, both here and throughout the world.
Why cannot our episcopal suicide bombers give us their rationale ? Even the most demented suicide bomber has a reason , of a kind. We suspect our bishops will already have a place in history, however close to the Reformation the parallels may be. It would be at least amusing to find out what they think they are doing.