Archbishop who told victim ‘Just move on’ will testify at inquiry
ONE of Scotland’s most senior Catholic clerics is to give evidence at an inquiry into child abuse, it was revealed yesterday.
Archbishop Mario Conti has been accused of calling abuse survivors the ‘opposition’ and is said to have told one alleged victim: ‘Times were different then, people should move on.’
Victims’ group In Care Abuse Survivors (INCAS) called for the retired Archbishop to be brought before the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) to explain a series of controversial alleged comments.
Yesterday, it emerged the 84-year-old cleric would give evidence, on a personal basis and not on behalf of the Catholic Church, at a hearing in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
It came as Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the timescale for the expected completion of the inquiry had been extended because of the high number of witnesses coming forward.
The £13.9million statutory probe, which is exploring claims of institutional abuse, was launched in October 2015 and had been expected to report back within four years but will now publish its final findings ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’.
Archbishop Conti has been accused by survivors of doubting their claims or in some cases downplaying their alleged ordeals while staying in orphanages run by Catholic orders.
In May, the SCAI heard the Archbishop allegedly told an abuse survivor that ‘people should move on’, then ‘didn’t even sit down or ask how [the victim] was or offer any sympathy or anything’.
Using the pseudonym Christina, the witness claimed she had told him of physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the Nazareth House home in Cardonald, Glasgow, after she was admitted in 1977, at the age of eight.
A teenage boy also claimed he told the then Father Conti during confession about abuse he had suffered – and was told to pray for his abuser.
Joseph Currie, 64, said he endured around four years of sexual abuse by a male helper at a home run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Aberdeen.
No one was available to comment at the Catholic Church last night.
In April, Simon Collins, representing INCAS, told the inquiry of ‘letters from the then Bishop Mario Conti of Aberdeen’ which may be ‘of interest’. He said: ‘In one... he makes what appears to be a reference to survivors as “the opposition”.’
An SCAI report on alleged abuse at Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, run by the Daughters of Charity, is expected to be published soon.