The BBC has seen evidence
that bishops in the Catholic Church in Scotland knew of 20 allegations
of child sex abuse by priests between 1985 and 1995.
In the mid-1990s, an academic was appointed to advise the church on sexual abuse and how to respond to it. Alan Draper asked Scotland's eight bishops how much they knew.
The BBC has seen the letters which they sent in reply to Mr Draper, which refer to 20 allegations of child abuse by priests.
Mr Draper says he wanted independent experts to investigate further, but the bishops disagreed. He said: "I was very concerned about their unwillingness to actually expose individual priests who were leaving double lives.
"They were very reluctant to do that, and I felt that was totally inappropriate. It's not what your sexuality is, it's how you're managing your sexuality.
"Certainly there's strong
evidence to say some of the priests were out of control sexually,
whether they be homosexual or heterosexual. The file should be made open
to an independent group, preferably chaired by a judge."
The letters seen by the BBC suggest some priests were reported to police and removed from parishes, while others were not.
Now more alleged victims are coming forward after Cardinal Keith O'Brien admitted sexual misconduct after resigning as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh following allegations by other priests.
Lawyer Cameron Fyfe said: "I'm acting for six clients who allege abuse, two of whom have come forward just in the last few weeks since the Keith O'Brien scandal. "Some of them go back to the early 1980s, but two of them have been within the last 10 years."
He said two of his clients claimed to have been raped while they were children, with the attacks taking place in the late-1980s and mid-1990s.
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