THE priest behind a book alleging a culture of sexual bullying within the Catholic Church in Scotland is being threatened with legal action from another serving cleric.
Father Robert Kane, a priest in the Diocese of Motherwell, announced to his congregation his intention to pursue Father Matthew Despard through the courts.
It is understood he was given a standing ovation by parishioners.
Father Despard's book claims sexual misconduct has been rife for decades in junior seminaries where teenagers train for the priesthood.
The self-published Priesthood In Crisis, which came in the wake of the sex scandal and allegations facing shamed Cardinal Keith O'Brien, was recently withdrawn by Amazon.
While he is not named in the book, it is understood Father Kane, who serves St Teresa of Lisieux in Newarthill, believes he is referred to several times. It is understood he denies any wrongdoing.
One source within the Motherwell Diocese said: "My information is Father Kane intends to or has already started legal action. I also understand one or two others are also involved but Father Kane's name is the principal one in any discussions about the book."
Church sources questioned the cost of a defamation action to an individual priest and what damages could be secured from another member of the clergy.
There is also the legal difficulty of Father Kane not being mentioned, while the book is already out of circulation.
In his book, Father Despard, 48, parish priest of St John Ogilvie's in High Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, claims he was the victim of inappropriate approaches as a seminarian and alleges trainee priests who rebuffed the advances of others were bullied.
The diocese has instigated proceedings against Father Despard under canon law, which governs the Catholic Church, with sources claiming "certain observations have been made about Father Despard's conduct and what he's said".
Father Kane is currently in Rome and was unavailable for comment. Father Despard was also unavailable.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article