30/05/2013 Newsnight Scotland

Another ageing Catholic bishop retires, it means that soon more

than half the diocese won't have a bishop. We ask - where will the

church find the men to lead it from scandal to revival?

We remember this woman, social reformer, activist and Glasgow's

first woman Councillor. Her supporters want to build a statue to

MEP rate the legacy of Mary Barbour. But is that type of memorial rather

old hat in the 21st century? Good evening. Bishop Joe Devine was

not understating matters when he said 2013 had been a very bad year

for the Catholic Church in Scotland. Revelations about Cardinal Keith

O'Brien's behaviour and his subsequent removal have been

devastating for the church. Bishop Devine is standing down as bishop of

Motherwell which means four of the eight diocese now have no bishop.

Another is due to retire soon. Where does the church in crisis turn for

leadership? Vment? Breests from the Motherwell diocese gathering this

morning to hear from the papal nuncio. Bishop Devine ten --

tendered his resignation in August last year. It's normal for bishops

to continue in post sometimes for up to two years while a replacement is

found. The Vatican's acceptance of the resignation has raised eyebrows

and it leaves another vacant sea in Scotland. Currently the diocese of

Edinburgh, St and Druze, Motherwell and pailsly are vacant. The bishop

of Galloway has passed the age of 75 and will need to be replaced soon.

Only argyle and the aisles, Glasgow and Aberdeen have bishops in post

for the long-term. But we may see some appointments as soon as next

month. I hope that by the end of June we'll have a successor for the

places in Edinburgh, that we have started to work for the sea of

pailsly. -- paisley. I see that paisley would be provided by during

the summer. The dismissal of Cardinal Keith O'Brien after he

admitted improper sexual conduct, has been traumatic for the Scottish

church. The hope is the new bishops can help to heal those wounds.

helps enorm lousily. There's new vigour and dnchts it helps

enormously. There's new vigour. It has been a very bad year for us and

we'll be glad to see the back of it. Where will that new generation of

leaders come from? And will they be up to the task?

Joining me now Liz Laydon, editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer and

Stephen McGinty of the Scotsman. Good evening to you both. We hear

much about a church in crisis, scandal surrounding Keith O'Brien,

dwindling numbers of worshippers, what are the strengths of Catholic

Church in Scotland? I think the strength of the Catholic Church are

many and moments like this, it's very difficult to remember just all

the good work that the Catholic Church has done as a leading voice

amongst the interfaith and ecumenical communities. The

strengths are still there. The laity, the role of the laity, the

work, the hard work and the consistent work of the clergy here

in Scotland. All the religious orders and the remaining members of

the hierarchy. I think it's natural but all too easy to focus on the

negativity when the church is facing the challenges that it is at the

moment. When you talk about the strengths of the Catholic Church do

we mean the people at the top, will they be able to fill the vacancies?

Undoubtedly they will. There are talented priests out there. We have

to look at similar situations in Ireland, when it went through its

terrible troubles in the Catholic Church and there was a decision to

put in Irish priests but they were from the Vatican. They had worked

abroad for a long time. That's a parallel which is more than likely.

I think what we could well see is priests who have been working in the

Vatican for years. Father BUrke was very close to Benedict XVI, these

are characters and Peter Smith, who is working for the United Nations

current currently. These are all men of great calibre. We could well

perhaps see one of them coming back. We heard today the nuncio saying

that for whatever Keith O'Brien's sins may have been you have to

remember the good work he did for the church. He was supposedly

providing moral leadership and wasn't living up to the standards

which he himself set. Do you think that those comments today perhaps

point it a church that doesn't fully understand the depths of the crisis

it's in? The church has hay very strong grasp of the challenges it

faces Atkinson moment. That's evident from the -- faces at the

moment. Scotland was long called the special daughter of Rome. We're only

a few years past a papal visit to Scotland. Scotland is on the radar

of the holy sea and I think to see that we have to only look abroad to

fill the vacancies is doing a grave disservice to the calibre of the

chergey here in Scotland as well -- clergy here in Scotland as well.

it time for a rationalisation at the top of the church? There's cannon

law, the hierarchy of the church, the idea that a David Cameron

Cabinet, you can sweep the diocese out of the way and a amalgamate

departments. It's not going to happen. I think all the vacancies

it's more than likely will be filled. You talk about the laity

being one of the strengths of the church. Most definitely.They need

to take a greater role in how the church operates rather than being a

top-down structure? I think the opportunity has always been there.

But people are realising more and more that they have their gifts and

talents can be utilised more than their regular attendance of mass on

a Sunday. About holding the bishops to account sometimes? It's more a

case of being sow portative of the very -- being supportive of the very

difficult tasks that the Catholic Church have and have always had

being a minority religion in this country and facing the challenges of

secularisation which has been a massive challenge to people of

faith, people of all faithes and people of none in fact. There's also

the situation that the laity in Scotland really want to find out

what's been going on. I think we're in a situation where there has been

a crisis in the Catholic Church. It's no longer enough that people

are broadly expected to turn up to pray and pay. They want to find out

what's happened. I think they're owed an explanation from the bishops

of the Catholic Church. Do you think we'll actually get that? Do you

think we'll get some insight into what has gone wrong here? I think in

terms of investigation, I think there's a difference between holding

people to account for their actions and wanting vengeance. There's a

big, big difference there. As much as Catholics would want answers, I

think they're more concerned about how the church is going to move

forward and how everybody affected by this is going to be treated and

taken care of, because once the dust settles, are those people who have

raised allegations, are they going to be provided with the support that

they're going to require for the rest of their lives? Are the people

who have been asked to leave the country for a period of renewal and

penance, are they going to be supported by the church? In terms of

holding the bishops to account and the church to account, is today's

announcement by Joe Devine part of that? Part of it is his old age, but

other bishops have held on longer. I think we saw bishops in the past who

have done three years past their time. Joe Devine has done eight

months. There was an element that many priests were keen there should

be a new bishop appointed in the diocese. Let me thank you both for

coming in to speak to us tonight. Now Mary Barbour is a name which

means nothing to most people. Yet many argue she's one of the most

important and neglected social reformers of Twentieth Century

Scotland. In the middle of the First World War she led the women of

Glasgow in their rent strike. Those who guard her legacy say a public

The cost of housing is and always has been a highly contentious issue.

It is has the power to bring ordinary people on the streets in

defence of what is widely considered their right to low-cost, social

housing. 100 years ago, there was no such entitlement. It was the women

of Glasgow who fought for and won Europe's first rent restriction

legislation. They were led by a little known woman, Mary Barbour.

think for that alone, she deserves massive praise because this act

helped working families, poor families living in appalling

conditions in those tenaments of those days up and down the whole of

Britain. That alone she deserves recognition for. As centre of the

munitions industry by 1915 Glasgow was the most overcrowded city in

Britain. While so many men were away fighting, private landlords decide

today would be a good time to increase the rent. Mary Barbour

persuaded women if they stood together they could put a stop to

the profiteering. Speaking almost 30 years ago, Mary's granddaughter was

clearly proud of that solidarity. It's very hard to organise women

because when they go home and tell their husbands, their husbands will

say, " Oh, you're not doing that." You even still have people doing

that. In those days, they all did it. Yet, they all defied their

husbands and stood behind her. It really was very, very good.

protests started here where Mary organised committees to resist

eviction. When the rent collectors arrived the women would block the

entrance to the tenaments and beat on pots and pans to attract

attention. They threw flours and soot at the men until they went

away. These protests spread all over Glasgow and the women became known

in November 1915, when 20,000 marched on Glasgow Sheriff Court in

a bid to stop the evictions. It was one of the largest demonstrations

the city had ever seen. And it was effective. Just one month later, a

nervous government rgs fighting the Germans and aware of revolutionary

talk in Russia introduced the rent restriction act, the first of its

kind in Europe. # Mrs Barbour's Army brought them to

their knees # We are Rhone jiment in pinnies

backed by bung reez... # It seems Mrs Barbour's army is still

recruiting. Sharon Thomas became aware of her so when the Glasgow

women's library commissioned her to create an art work, she chose Mary

Barbour as a strong female role model. I think important to promote

responsibility and to promote excellence for other women and girls

coming up. So they can see the women that went before. They need to see

the history. They need to see what came before. They need to see an

icon. They need to see the power before them to know what hand to

give them confidence. The Glasgow rent strike was just the start of

Mary Barbour's political career. In 1920, less than two years after

women were given the vote, she became the first female councillor

to take a seat here in these chambers. It was from here that she

continued her work on behalf of Glasgow's poorest, especially the

women and children. She campaigned for public baths and children's play

areas and helped establish the city's first family planning clinic.

Councillors here have recently given their full support for the campaign

to commemorate her. People like John McLain were talking revolution and

somebody like Mary Barbour comes along and her luck was entirely

practical about the problems facing the women and the children living in

the tenaments, which were appalling tenaments in those days. She was

doing things that made a practical difference in people's lives, right

there and then. You didn't have to wait until the world became a better

place to do it. She had to fight for it. Now Maria and others are taking

up that fight. They don't know yet exactly how or where Mary Barbour

will be commemorated but they're hoping to have it completed in time

to mark the centenary of the rent Laura Maxwell with the story of Mary

Barbour and the campaign for memorial statue in her honour.

Joining me now to discuss the concept of memorials and public art

Neil Baxter of the royal Royal Incorporation of Architects in

Scotland. Is she deserving of a Scooch ewe? I don't think there's

any doubt of Mary Barbour's importance of her in Glasgow. As

that piece demonstrated she was a very pragmatic figure and for far

too long memorial statues have been focussed upon the aristocratic, the

great, the powerful, those with titles and indeed, royals. But does

that not tell us that statues are a little bit old hat? When you say

they're old hat, they go back maybe 30,000 years, soy think there's no

question, but they've been happening for 30,000 years and they

undoubtedly will keep happening and despite the fact that we live in an

age of extraordinary technologies, they will all be gone in 100 years

and the statues that are made now will still be with future

generations. Which ones would be point to as great examples or

personal favourites? Well, I live in the centre of Edinburgh. Robert

Ferguson on the cannon gate, just an extraordinary piece of work and

important because that statue is down among the people. So this idea

of statues being high and remote and of individuals who are venerated, I

have a criticism of the Donald Dewar statue. For practical reasons, you

know, it has to be on a plinth, but it's a shame because Donald Dewar,

I'm sure, would not see himself or wouldn't have seen himself as

somebody who should be up there, you know, lauding it above people.

on a plinth because he wasn't venerated in statue form because

people vandalised the statue. We see in the Venter of Glasgow people

climbing onto the top of the Duke of Wellington regularly to give him

that hat or traffic cone that he wears. People obviously don't...

Nice, humorous Glasgow. People don't always look up to these statues and

venerate them in the way that you think. Well, maybe they don't

venerate the Duke of Wellington, because maybe they don't recall or

they haven't been taught what the Duke of Wellington actually did, but

the fact is modern, contemporary statues, I mean, there's the great

Glasgow city centre statue of the fireman, which if you remember after

9/11, that became the focus. Now that is a contemporary, it's not

wholly representative work. It's actual actually, in some senses,

it's slightly cartoonish, in its depiction of, you know, the

equivalent of the unknown soldier. It's not a specific, named

individual, but it's an emblem of the contribution that the Fire

Service makes. Briefly, if you wouldn't mind, tell us about your

particular role in one statue which lost its head. Well, I was very much

involved in the work on Glasgow Green to refurbish Glasgow Green and

James Watt had lost his head long since and I'm happy to say that his

recap tags has been acheeped -- achieved. And he stands there happy

reheaded, which is wholly appropriate for somebody who

contributed so much not just to Glasgow or Scotland, but to the

world. Neil Baxter, thank you very much.

That's all from me. If you want to see the programme again, it's on the

iPlayer. More news as always on BBC Scotland's website. Good morning