BY Ian Dunn | March 22 | 
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Archbishop celebrates with the Irish
Archbishop Tartaglia: Irish a gift, as St Patrick may have been our gift to Ireland
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow used his eve of St Patrick’s Day homily to recognise the huge contribution the Irish community has made to the city and the archdiocese.
Speaking at a special Mass for the Irish community at St Andrew’s Cathedral on Saturday, Archbishop Tartaglia also said that while the bonds of ‘ethnicity or social background’ cannot top shared Catholic Faith, that Irish immigrants had ‘shaped the modern Archdiocese of Glasgow for the better.
“Your contribution and loyalty have been deeply appreciated, and today we need you more than ever,” he said
Connection
The archbishop added that Scots could and should feel a very special connection to St Patrick. “We feel a special link to St Patrick because many historians suggest that he was an early example of that Scots-Irish identity which has marked the history of the Faith in Scotland,” he said. “In the area around Dumbarton, where I once served as a priest, to this day the feeling is that St Patrick was ‘one of their own’ who went on to become the great apostle and patron of the Irish.”
Archbishop Tartaglia, said that if Scotland had sent St Patrick to the Irish, it was an investment which had paid off tenfold.
Challenges
The archbishop said that this St Patrick’s Day our ‘sense of identity and pride in our Catholic Faith has been something of a rollercoaster ride.’
“The shock of the Holy Father’s resignation; the sense of being without Peter our rock; the traumatic fallout from Cardinal O’Brien’s departure and the media dissection of the Church’s problems,” he said. “But then there have been the highs, the glorious highs of the white smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel, of the amazing new Pope the Lord has given us. I have a sense that our new Holy Father Pope Francis is going to lead us in ways we never thought possible, inspiring us by his deep spirituality and disarming simplicity, helping us to carry out the New Evangelisation that is required of the men and women of our age.”
Pic: Paul McSherry
- This story was reported in full in the March 22 print edition of the SCO.
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