Scottish Catholic Observer

THE Scottish Catholic Archives is bringing out a book on the historic links between Scotland and the Vatican to mark Pope Benedict XVI’s forthcoming visit.

The book, Scotland and the Holy See; The Story of Scotland’s Links with the Papacy Down the Centuries, was originally published to coincide with Pope John Paul’s visit to Scotland but will be published in a revised form to mark Pope’s Benedict’s arrival in the country on September 16.

Andrew Nicol, the keeper of the Scottish Catholic Archives, is editing the title and told the SCO this week that the book covers a broad sweep of history.

“It outlines the whole history of Scotland and the Vatican from Roman times and Queen Margaret of Scotland, the Viking invasions, the Reformation, Mary Queen of Scots, the re-establishment of the Scottish hierarchy and the influences of Irish, Italian and other Catholic immigrants,” he said. “It covers a lot of ground very well.”

New edition

Commenting on the initiative, Mr Nicol said he hoped the reissued and updated book would bring Scottish Catholic and Vatican history to a new generation.

“We would have liked to have published a fresh book on the links between Scotland and the Vatican,” Mr Nicol said. “But given the time constraints it just wasn’t possible. And we know that the book from the last Papal visit was still very good so we decided to bring out a new edition of that because we believed it still has a lot to offer.”

The book is not all ancient history, however, as it covers the Church in the modern age and includes current topics such as the St Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese’s missionary work in Bauchi in Nigeria.

The main change from the last edition however is a new chapter on the last Papal visit.

“The final chapter is now on the impact of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Scotland,” said Mr Nicol. “You could write half a dozen books on Scotland and the Vatican in the last 30 years if you wanted to get right into it but we thought it best just to provide a broad overview and let the readers fill in the gaps.

Cover

The 2010 edition looks striking with the front cover showing the famous fresco by Pinturchio at the Sienna Duomo of Enea Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, as an Ambassador to the Court of James I of Scotland.

“It’s a wonderful picture and it shows how people in the Vatican thought of Scotland in those days,” Mr Nicol said.

More generally he is effusive in his praise for the book.

“I learned a lot of things from it,” he said. “Not that I know everything but it shows there is a lot in there that should be of interest to anyone interested in Scotland’s Catholic history.”

One passage on the damage done by Viking invasions to the early Scottish Church illustrates the book’s sweep.

“The Scottish Church suffered severely from the Vikings, who plundered Christian settlements in

Shetland, the Orkneys, the Western Isles and lona, killing or exiling their clergy,” it says. “Some inkling of these disturbances can be inferred from the St Ninian’s Isle treasure, an exquisite silver hoard containing sacred vessels of that  period, discovered in 1958, which had hastily been buried in a box under the altar of the church there, prior to one such  raid. One result of this constant harrying of the Scottish coastline was to remove the primatial See from lona to Dunkeld, whose abbot was described in 865 as the chief  bishop of Alba. And after 900 AD the eastern movement  of the administrative centre of the Church continued, and Cill Rlmhinn, later called Kilremonth (Kinrimund) and then St Andrews, became the capital.”

— Scotland and the Holy See; The Story of Scotland’s Links with the Papacy Down the Centuries costs £5 and will be on sale at the Papal Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, at several Edinburgh book shops and from the Scottish Catholic Archives.

— ian@scottishcatholicobserver. org.uk