Ron Ferguson: I must have been the only person in Scotland watching yesterday afternoon's Old Firm game hoping for a glimpse of the Moderator and the Cardinal. How sad is that?

I must have been the only person in Scotland watching yesterday afternoon's Old Firm game hoping for a glimpse of the Moderator and the Cardinal. How sad is that? There I was, sitting with a Sabbath pint in a crowded Ferry Inn in Stromness - surrounded by unbelievers who had, strangely, never even heard of the Nicene Creed - trying to see if the two top clerics were joining in the passionate hymns that rolled down from the stands in Scotland's peculiar televised Songs of Praise service.

The Rt Rev Alan McDonald, Aberdeen supporter and this year's Moderator, is a longstanding pal of mine, and I've met Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien at several ecumenical gatherings. So, I was curious to know what a Dons fan and a Cowdenbeath supporter - only kidding - hoped to achieve by sitting among the great unwashed while blue and green young men kicked a pig's bladder around Paradise.

A bit of personal context: not long after Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to Scotland in 1982, I decided, as leader of the Iona Community, to invite the high heid yins of Scotland's mainstream churches to come to Iona to pray and talk together. To my astonishment, they all accepted. We decided to hold to our policy that when guests come to stay in Iona Abbey they share in the life of the whole community and participate not just in worship but in the daily chores. When it came to the washing-up, a photo was taken of Cardinal Tom Winning and Kirk Moderator John Paterson drying dishes together. The picture of the two smiling leaders made the front pages of the next day's press, and provoked a great deal of comment. It was an image that stayed in the mind.

Run the film forward 25 years, from Iona to Paradise. The image of Alan McDonald and Keith O'Brien, sitting together at Parkhead with other religious leaders, made a public statement of a different kind: if you want to be sectarian, don't look to Scotland's churches for support.

Is that image of any importance? Yes and no. The Old Firm clashes are neither the cause of sectarianism nor its only poisonous manifestation, but the divisive, high-profile symbolism - with hate-filled songs broadcast around the world - highlights Scotland's shame. When the going on the field gets tough, charming lyrics are even mouthed by douce Scottish bankers. To insist that only inarticulate Neanderthals participate is to live in denial.

And those who argue that Old Firm matches are substitutes for war, and therefore healthier, turn their heads away from what is actually happening in the casualty rooms at Glasgow's hospitals. If you are wearing the wrong football colours in the wrong place at the wrong time, you may end up dead.

Having said all that, the situation has improved dramatically in recent times. A lot of that is down to the efforts of the clubs. The overturning of Rangers' ban on signing Roman Catholics - after years of risibly denying that such a policy was in force - has been a major factor. Ibrox chairman David Murray's determination to deal with the situation is palpable. And educational programmes such as Celtic's Bhoys Against Bigotry campaign have been effective. The change may have come about largely for financial reasons, but the long overdue willingness to root out sectarianism and racism in soccer is welcome. First Minister Jack McConnell also deserves credit for putting sectarianism at the top of the political agenda.

In the context of our nation's history of bigotry, and the less than glorious role of the churches, images of public friendship are significant contributions to Scotland's healing. Relationships between the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in Scotland today are dramatically different from what they were even 40 years ago. The friendship between Keith O'Brien and Alan McDonald goes back a few years, and its public manifestation in what can be an explosive situation is a welcome offering.

Good, then, as far as it goes. As I look around the Ferry Inn, I'm reminded of a wider and much more challenging context. The truth is that the punters couldn't give a toss about religion or about the doings of churchmen of any stripe. Part of the reason for the success of the ecumenical movement is that the churches, with rapidly eroding membership rolls, are up against it. There is much less passion and bitterness because religion matters less and less.

The churches face daunting questions about sociological and intellectual credibility. And no photo opportunity will make any difference in terms of the searing, haunting words of Dennis Potter: "Religion is the wound, not the bandage."