A group of students have expressed their anger over a Scottish university’s decision to award a former north-east bishop an honorary degree.
Glasgow University announced yesterday the Elgin-born Archbishop of Glasgow, the Most Rev Mario Conti, would receive the award in recognition of his contribution to the university.
Members of the university’s students representative council said they were “outraged” by the decision after the former Bishop of Aberdeen, who started his career in Aberdeen before spending 15 years as a parish priest in Caithness, had previously been accused of making homophobic comments.
Laura Laws, president of the students representative council, said: “We feel that this makes a mockery of Glasgow University’s focus on equality and diversity.”
In 2006, Archbishop Conti was criticised for making remarks about civil partnerships during his St Mungo’s sermon.
Speaking at the sermon, he said: “Recent legislation to introduce civil partnerships dangerously weakens the uniqueness of marriage as a time-honoured, legally recognised and protected social reality and a fiscally privileged entity.
“It also implicitly places homosexual acts on a plane of moral equivalence to love.”
He went on: “All of this flies in the face of the Christian Catholic view of sexuality and marriage and stems from the basic mistake of separating the unitise and procreative aspects of marital love.”
Miss Laws said the student council, which has 37 members, believed the university should distance itself from the archbishop’s views.
She said: “By celebrating the archbishop’s work without caveat, the university condones everything he has done in office – including his notorious discrimination against a huge section of our society.
“By aligning themselves with the archbishop, the university runs the risk of isolating many students and staff.
“Universities often derive benefits by association with those on whom they bestow honorary degrees.
“We don't believe that this negative aspect of the archbishop’s character is something that the university should associate itself with.”
Archbishop Conti was born at Elgin in 1934, and became Bishop of Aberdeen in 1977. He was appointed Archbishop of Glasgow by Pope John Paul II in 2002. He is also an honorary professor of theology at Aberdeen University.
Glasgow graduate the Rev Kathy Galloway will also receive an honorary degree from the university on June 16.
Glasgow University vice-principal Graham Caie said: “The university is delighted to award doctor of divinity honorary degrees to Archbishop Conti and the Rev Kathy Galloway in recognition of their contribution to the ecumenical life of Scotland and their close ties to Glasgow University.”