Scottish Catholic Observer

AID to the Church in Need’s new chaplain, Fr Dominic Robertson, visited Scotland last week to spread the word about the charity’s work ‘putting faith into action.’

Fr Robertson, who is Assistant Superior of the Mount Street Jesuit Community in central London, became the charity’s ecclesiastical assistant earlier this year and said it had been an ‘honour and a real joy.’

“I visited the Middle East before I started this job—Lebanon and Jordan—and so was aware of the pressing, urgent, real needs there regarding the persecution of Christians and religious freedom,” he told the SCO.

“I’ve been amazed at the expertise and the connection of the local Church in all of those places, and I think that’s what Aid to the Church in Need can bring. They really do know what is going on in the places where they provide assistance through the local Church.”

Noting that persecution of Christians had worsened in the Middle East in the past decade, he said the charity’s work was more important than ever.

“The needs are greater in terms of providing aid, in providing psychosocial help, in providing education and in giving people an opportunity to practise their faith which is so real to them,” he said.

“They need a huge amount of support as well from us so that they’re able to survive in an increasingly tragic situation.”

Fr Robertson spent eight years in Scotland—four as a student at St Andrews, two working at St Aloysius’ College and two years as a priest at St Aloysius’ Church, Glasgow.

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