THE Catholic Church in Scotland yesterday defended its handling of the Bishop Roderick Wright case as suggestions of yet more affairs emerged.
Dr Wright and his friend Ms Kathleen Macphee have been missing since they vanished from a cottage at Kendal, Cumbria early on Sunday morning, as details of their relationship appeared in the News of the world.
A former housekeeper claimed yesterday to have stumbled across notes to him from four women and said that when she confronted him, the bishop denied everything.
Ms Ileene McKinney (67) also said she had taken her fears to Cardinal Thomas Winning, then Archbishop of Glasgow, and to Archbishop Keith O'Brien, of St Andrews, but she heard nothing further.
It emerged that this was the crunch meeting four years ago at which the two senior churchmen accepted Bishop Wright's categorical denial of misconduct, in which he denied the allegations as "scurrilous".
Two weeks after that meeting, said Ms McKinney, Bishop Wright said she could no longer work as his housekeeper - and told her to get out. Her claims were carried in the Scottish Daily Record yesterday.
But Father Noel Barry, spokes man for Cardinal Winning, said: "The church has to operate according to its own standards. We would never, ever, in any circumstances, talk about a meeting which was sought and conducted on a confidential basis."
The Catholic press and media office in Scotland was closed for the day. At the home of the church's press officer for Scotland the message on an answering machine told callers: "We have nothing to add to the former Bishop Wright question. We really have to return to our normal duties."
The disclosures came as the whereabouts of former Bishop Wright - yesterday branded a "Judas" by members of his former congregation at St Columba's Cathedral in Oban - remained a mystery.
His former housekeeper said she began working for him in 1991, a week after he was ordained as a bishop, but within four months she came across notes suggesting he was having affairs with four women. But when she confronted him he maintained innocence and swore "on his dead mother's grave" that he had not been having affairs.
She found another note in 1992 which said: "My darling Kathleen, I love you very much", but got a similar response when she again challenged him.
She wrote to Archbishop O'Brien who visited her with the then Archbishop Winning, and she told them of her fears at a "horrendous" two hour meeting. She said that when she said the bishop should resign, she was asked by Archbishop Winning: "Is that not a bit harsh? What about confession?"
She was told to leave it to them, and she fully expected he would be asked to resign. But two weeks later Bishop Wright dispensed with her services, and she heard nothing more from church authorities.
When Bishop Wright was questioned by the two senior churchmen, he cast doubt on her credibility, it has emerged.
Faced with his categorical denial - and aware that only two years before, he, had gone through the strict scrutiny procedure for appointing bishops - Dr Winning and Dr O'Brien felt they had little option but to accept his version.
Meanwhile, suggestions were being heavily discounted that Dr Wright may get the title of a non existent diocese. He could, however, become a parish priest in the future, although this is viewed by church sources in Scotland as no more than a distant possibility, unlikely at present to be a realistic option. It could certainly not happen if he were to marry Ms Macphee, a divorced woman, as he told the News of the World he hoped to.
Sources indicated that this prospect was held out to him at the meeting in Glasgow eight days ago at which he offered his resignation.
Meanwhile, a new code of conduct aimed at curbing sexual scandals in the Church of England includes advice to clergy not to drink or take drugs on duty.
Checklists of good behaviour published yesterday also urge clergy to avoid late night meetings with lone parishioners, and male priests are warned to avoid counselling "hysterical females". The wide ranging Code of Ministerial Practice has been drawn up by a working party in the Diocese of Oxford.