Mario Conti calls for ‘realistic’ attack on poverty

from The Sunday Herald
By Jenifer Johnston
THE ARCHBISHOP of Glasgow is bringing together academics, politicians and religious leaders to examine poverty "realistically" at a major conference next year.

Archbishop Mario Conti has organised the Transcending Poverties event in conjunction with the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The February conference will explore why poverty has not been eradicated in the west of Scotland despite billions of pounds having been spent on social work, education and health initiatives.

However, critics have claimed the conference is another example of the church playing at politics.

Hosted by Baroness Helena Kennedy, the archbishop will be joined at Glasgow City Chambers on February 20 by Professor Lindsay Paterson, a noted authority on Scottish education; historian Professor Michael Pacione, health expert Professor Phil Hanlon and John Miller, former moderator of the Church of Scotland.

Archbishop Conti told the Sunday Herald he was prompted to organise the event by a "loss of a sense of the sacred in society".

He said: "That leads to a loss of respect for society itself and its pillars of school, family, government, religion and law and order, and subsequent disengagement from mainstream society.

"This disengagement leads to an ever more isolated search for satisfaction of the basic human needs, and resort to drugs and alcohol follows, leading to further poverty, lawlessness, a dependency culture, health problems and ultimately early death."

Describing 21st-century poverty as "a depressing and truly vicious circle", Conti called for an end to the "piecemeal" approach of different agencies. "It is only by pooling all that knowledge that we can hope to tackle this issue and make life better for people," he said.

In Scotland 1.2 million people live in "poor" households, while four of the top five ranked areas for multiple deprivation are in west central Scotland. The Scottish Executive has vowed to eliminate child poverty by 2020. However, campaigners say fragmented agency responses have meant that no substantial differences have been made to people's lives.

Professor John Richardson of the Royal Society of Edinburgh said he hoped the conference would be a "frank analysis of the historical and present state of Glasgow society; the root causes of social difficulties past and present."

Steven Purcell, the leader of Glasgow City Council, who will also be addressing the conference, said Glasgow had received £4.2 billion in investment in 2006. He added: "I'm determined that our focus will be on providing people with the opportunity, skills and ambition needed to eradicate poverty for good."

Alistair McBay, a spokesman for the Scottish Secular Society, said the conference was "another example of religion getting involved in politics".

"Generally speaking, if someone like Conti wants to focus on poverty then that's fine, but the church tends to pick and choose what it wants to do. Recently we've seen church leaders not willing to support the government's anti-discrimination laws on sexual orientation."

He added: "In some ways it's shameless politics and self-publicising, and it will be interesting to see what is going to come of it."