Iain Richard Torrance, is a retired Church of Scotland minister, theologian and academic. He is Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, Honorary Professor of Early Christian Doctrine and Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, President and Professor of Patristics Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, and an Extra Chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland. He was formerly Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland, and Dean of the Order of the Thistle. He is married to Morag Ann, whom he met while they were students at the University of St Andrews, and they have two children.
Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien was a Scottish Catholic cardinal. He was the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh from 1985 to 2013.
Kilmarnock Academy, formerly Kilmarnock Burgh School, is a state-funded secondary school situated in Kilmarnock, Scotland, currently located on Sutherland Drive in the New Farm Loch area of the town. The former original building in Elmbank Drive was erected in 1807. The school can be traced back to the 1630s when it was known as 'Kilmarnock Burgh School'. The school's operations are overseen by East Ayrshire Council.
As recent as the 2011 census, Christianity was the largest religion in Scotland. In the 2011 census, 53.8% of the Scottish population identified as Christian when asked: "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?". The Church of Scotland, a Presbyterian denomination often known as The Kirk, is recognised in law as the national church of Scotland. It is not an established church and is independent of state control. However, it is the largest religious grouping in Scotland, with 32.4% of the population according to the 2011 census. The other major Christian church is the Catholic Church, the form of Christianity in Scotland prior to the Reformation, which accounts for 15.9% of the population and is especially important in West Central Scotland and parts of the Highlands. Scotland's third largest church is the Scottish Episcopal Church. There are also multiple smaller Presbyterian churches, all of which either broke away from the Church of Scotland or themselves separated from churches which previously did so. According to the 2019 Scottish Household survey, since 2009, there has been an increase in the proportion of adults reporting not belonging to a religion to 56%. The trend of declining religious belief coincided with a sharp decrease since 2009 in the proportion of people who report that they belong to the Church of Scotland, from 34% to 20% of adults. Furthermore 13% reported belonging to the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church in Scotland, overseen by the Scottish Bishops' Conference, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church headed by the Pope. After being firmly established in Scotland for nearly a millennium, the Catholic Church was outlawed following the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Catholic Emancipation in 1793 helped Catholics regain civil rights. In 1878, the Catholic hierarchy was formally restored. Throughout these changes, several pockets in Scotland retained a significant pre-Reformation Catholic population, including parts of Banffshire, the Hebrides, and more northern parts of the Highlands, in Galloway at Terregles House, Munches House, Kirkconnell House, New Abbey and Parton House and at Traquair in Peebleshire.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland was established in 1981, following recommendations of the May Committee report of 1979. The Inspectorate is directly funded by the Scottish Government.
This page documents Catholic Church sexual abuse cases by country.
Filippo "Philip" Tartaglia was a Scottish prelate who served as a bishop of the Catholic Church. He served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Glasgow from 2012 until 2021. He previously served as Bishop of Paisley. Prior to his appointment as bishop, he was a professor at seminaries, as well as an assistant pastor and parish priest in the Archdiocese of Glasgow.
The Presbytery of Glasgow is one of the 46 Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. It dates back to the earliest periods of Presbyterian church government in the Church of Scotland in the late 16th century. The Presbytery of Glasgow currently has 125 congregations, making it by far the largest Presbytery in the Church of Scotland.
Ignatius Anthony Catanello was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. From 1994 to 2010 he served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn.
From the late 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse of children associated with Catholic institutions and clerics in several countries started to be the subject of sporadic, isolated reports. In Ireland, beginning in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children over decades. Six reports by the former National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church established that six Irish priests had been convicted between 1975 and 2011. This has contributed to the secularisation of Ireland and to the decline in influence of the Catholic Church. Ireland held referenda to legalise same-sex marriage in 2015 and abortion rights in 2018.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Europe has affected several dioceses in European nations.
James Leslie Weatherhead was a minister of the Church of Scotland and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 1993–1994.
Stephen Robson is a prelate of the Catholic Church. As of 2015, he is the Bishop of Dunkeld.
The McLellan Commission, chaired by Andrew McLellan, with a remit to review safeguarding policy, procedure and practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland, and to make recommendations for improvement, was announced by the Bishops' Conference of Scotland in November 2013. It published its report, "A Review of the Current Safeguarding Policies, Procedures and Practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland", known as the McLellan Report, on 18 August 2015. The commission investigated child sex abuse by Scotland's priests and religious, and the Church's responses. Section 2.1 of the Report acknowledged that "There is no doubt that abuse of the most serious kind has taken place within the Catholic Church in Scotland".
The Anglican Communion sexual abuse cases are a series of allegations, investigations, trials, and convictions of child sexual abuse crimes committed by clergy, nuns, and lay members of the Anglican Communion.
The Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, also known as the Comboni Missionaries of the Sacred Heart,or the Verona Fathers, and originally called the Sons of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is a Catholic clerical male religious congregation of pontifical right.
Andrew Duncan was a Latin scholar and Church of Scotland minister at Crail. He achieved notoriety for his presbyterian principles which brought him into conflict with James VI who wished to impose an episcopalian system. He attended the General Assembly of Aberdeen in 1605 which had been proscribed or prorogued by royal authority and was one of six ministers who were imprisoned and later exiled as a result. He was allowed to return after several years in France but was subsequently banished again following further controversy in failing to comply with the Five Articles of Perth. He died in exile in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1626.