University of Aberdeen Chaplain's conviction for sexual assault overturned

Reblogged from Seraphic:

Our hurt that a priest has (or may have) hurt one or more of us (again, Roman Catholic) laypeople or priests, behaving shamefully and sacrilegiously, is compounded by the media's salacious interest in the case, sometimes reviewing it again and again, giving the impression that there are more accusations than there actually are, and as many convictions as there are accusations. This leads to public contempt towards ALL church-going Roman Catholics, and public approbation for merely tribal Catholics who loudly declare themselves separate from "all that rubbish." And this is particularly painful in the United Kingdom, especially Scotland, where, since the Reformation, Roman Catholics have been a marginalized and very often reviled minority.

And for all these reasons, it is a matter of great joy that the Edinburgh High Court hasquashed the unjust conviction of Father Mark Paterson, O.Carm. Father Mark Paterson, former Catholic chaplain at Aberdeen University, did not sexually assault his accuser. Father Mark Paterson did not behave shamefully and sacrilegiously. And a short paragraph or paragraphs in a few British newspapers and blogs have briefly mentioned that the conviction was quashed.

Full post from Seraphic here.

Accounts of case: Laodicea ; Seraphic in Catholic World Report

O tempora! O mores!

Apologies for being rather quiet recently. (Not that, I suspect, such a blessed relief is the sort of thing one needs to apologize for...) Not only a large slab of work to be got through, but a slight detachment from the blooming buzzing confusion of the internet brought on by the normal emotional flatness after too much food and booze and too much squabbling on comboxes before Christmas.

Anyway, to ease myself gradually back into the white heat of the culture war that is Catholicism contra mundum...

I was flipping through The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse in the loo (as you do), when I came across this rather optimistic passage in the introduction:

I have given references in a good many cases to easily accessible English translations, especially when they are to be found in the English Hymnal or Hymns Ancient and Modern (penultimate edition), as one or other of these is to be found in most cultivated English households.

Now putting aside any nationalist quibbles about suspected hints that we beyond the Border would be content merely with back numbers of the Broons annuals in our libraries, it is unimaginable that anything similar could be written today (the first edition of the Book of Medieval Verse was 1928 but my printing is 1946). It's difficult to know where to start. A book of music? A book of Christian music? Any book that all educated people would be expected to have? Would we even expect cultivated homes to possess a copy of the Bible these days? (I'm afraid when mulling this over that the only book I suspected most 'cultivated' Scottish homes might be expected to possess these days would be Trainspotting. I'm simply going to ignore this thought as a rather troublesome nightmare.)

Without a shared (and deep) artistic culture, the world we inhabit is diminished. Our ability to pass on accumulated wisdom and solidarities to our children is also diminished. Religion of course isn't just a matter of culture: it is primarily about an openness to a real intelligence and agency that transcends the world. But human flourishing is a matter of our natural as well as our supernatural end. And access to that supernatural end is itself restricted if we live in a culture that at best ignores and even actively frustrates that supernatural end.

It's pretty clear that Pope Francis is not an obvious recruit to the sort of conservative, culture warfare that I generally espouse on this blog. That doesn't really bother me: Popes don't have to do everything; and, moreover, culture warfare needs the corrective of a constant reminder that the centre of our concerns isn't Virgil but Jesus. Moreover, the sort of popular piety that Francis clearly does strongly favour is itself a conservative cultural tradition: the sort of simple trust in established forms that leads an illiterate peasant to a traditional veneration of a shrine ought to lead the 'cultivated' to a veneration for traditional high culture (but which also ought to include veneration of that shrine).

Grace does not abolish nature but perfects it. Christianity does not abolish culture but perfects it. It is easy for conservatives to get trapped in traditional forms for their own sake and not see beyond them. But there is an equal danger in thinking that you can abolish culture and get to God without it. And that danger is particularly acute when the culture we would do without is precisely one that was shaped with reference to that supernatural end of the Beatific Vision.

I'm not sure what the Catholic equivalent of the English Hymnal would be. But in any case, I've got a copy of it, so I guess that means I'm cultivated, innit?

Happy New Year!

A busy year for Catholics particularly in Scotland...

We've had the Cardinal O'Brien 'affair' and his replacement with Archbishop Cushley, a major child abuse scandal at a (now closed) boarding school run by the Benedictines, the continued legislative process to introduce same sex 'marriage', as well as the little matter of an independence referendum fast approaching.

And then we had the resignation of Pope Benedict and his replacement by Pope Francis which has produced enthusiasm among many non-Catholics and some dental grinding among some traditionalist Catholics.

Not to mention the continuing strife in the Middle East, particularly Syria, and its effects, in particular, on the Christian minorities there.

Personally, I've had quite a pleasant year: nothing dramatic happening, merely the slow drip of time washing me a bit nearer to the grave. (We Scottish Catholics believe in preserving the best traditions of Calvinism and in particular a sprightly sense of seasonal jollity and optimism for the coming days.)

But really, my overwhelming feeling as I write this (apart from the immediate concern of  wondering what we're going to have for dinner) is what a great privilege it is to belong to a Church which, quite apart from its supernatural role as the Body of Christ, is the reservoir for much of the best in human culture. We don't always live up to that inheritance intellectually, artistically or morally, but high culture is there and available to the ordinary Catholic in a way that, outside the Church, few beyond the elites will experience it and few of them in a coherent, fully integrated harmony of truth, goodness and beauty. St Andrews Cathedral in Glasgow is not my favourite Scottish church, but even it offers the weekly or even daily experience of a coherent aesthetic space which gestures to transcendent values and which is a rarity in the modern age:

Morally, the techniques of the examination of the conscience, both privately and in the confessional, again offer to ordinary people a seriousness and depth in life that the modern secular world does its best to destroy. And intellectually, the Church offers a view of life that would be recognizable to Stoics, Neo-Platonists and Peripatetics and yet in a way that is livable by ordinary, non-philosophers. (And all this before we come on to the supernatural.)

For many non-Catholics, the Church seems to be viewed as a harsh discipline, borne simply because of an illusory promise of a pay off after death.  It doesn't feel like that inside: rather more like inhabiting a giant space with far too many rooms to explore in a lifetime. I really can't think of anywhere else I would rather live out my life and have my family live out theirs.

Ignore the occasional bits of grit. Being a Catholic is just great.

Happy New Year!