The Catholic Church in Scotland describes the organisation of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, which is distinct from the Catholic Church in England and Wales or the Catholic Church in Ireland.

In the 2001 census about 16% of the population of Scotland described themselves as being Roman Catholic, compared with 42% affiliated to the Church of Scotland. [1] Most Scottish Catholics are the descendants of Scottish Highlanders and Irish immigrants who moved to Scotland's cities and towns during the nineteenth century.

One of the issues it has had to face is sectarianism, though this is now largely restricted to football in parts of the Central Belt, especially in the west, or to spillovers from Northern Ireland.

History

Christianity probably came to Scotland around the second century, and was firmly established by the sixth and seventh centuries. However, until the eleventh century, the relationship between the Church in Scotland and the Papacy is ambiguous. The Scottish Celtic Church had marked liturgical and ecclesiological differences from the rest of Western Christendom. Some of these were resolved at the end of the seventh century following the Synod of Whitby and St Columba's withdrawal to Iona, however, it was not until the ecclessiastical reforms of the eleventh century that the Scottish Church became an integral part of the Catholic communion.

That remained the picture until the Scottish Reformation in the early sixteen century, when the Church in Scotland broke with the papacy, and adopted a Calvinist confession. At that point the celebration of the Roman Mass was outlawed. When Mary Queen of Scots returned from France to rule, she found herself as a Catholic in a largely Protestant state and Protestant court. However, some few thousand indigenous Scottish Catholics remained mainly in a small strip from the north-east coast to the Western Isles. Significant strongholds included Moidart, Morar and Barra. However some Scottish Lairds and land owners remained Roman Catholic and some converted such as Saint John Ogilvie.

The Jacobite risings in 1715 and 1745 further damaged the Catholic cause in Scotland and it was not until the start of Catholic Emancipation in 1793 that Roman Catholicism regained a civil respectability.

During the nineteenth century, Irish immigration substantially boosted the number of Scottish Roman Catholics, especially in the west, and by 1900 it was estimated that 90-95% of Scottish Catholics were fully or partly of Irish descent (however, since many of the Irish came from heavily Scottish-influenced Ulster, the distinction between "Irish" and "Scottish" Catholics was blurry). Italian and Lithuanian immigrants also boosted numbers of Roman Catholics in Scotland. More recently immigrants from Poland have also increased numbers of Catholics.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy was re-established in 1878 at the beginning of his pontificate by Pope Leo XIII. Currently the senior bishop in Scotland is Cardinal Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

Organisation

There are two archbishops and six bishops in Scotland:

• Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh
• Bishop of Aberdeen
• Bishop of Argyll and the Isles
• Bishop of Dunkeld
• Bishop of Galloway
• Archbishop of Glasgow
• Bishop of Motherwell
• Bishop of Paisley

See also

Religion in Scotland

Church of Scotland Roman Catholic Church Free Church of Scotland Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) United Free Church of Scotland Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland Associated Presbyterian Churches Scottish Episcopal Church Baptist Union of Scotland Action of Churches Together in Scotland Scottish Reformation Hinduism Islam Judaism

• Bishops' Conference of Scotland
• Roman Catholicism in Great Britain
• Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales
• Roman Catholic Church in Ireland

External links

• Bishops' Conference of Scotland
• Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Scotland

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See also