ALLELUIA

Remembering a great Catholic poet

By Øyvind Johannes Vardenær Evenstad

Thirty years ago this month, on Tuesday 16 April 1996, the memorial of Saint Magnus of Orkney, something remarkable took place in Kirkwall.

For the first time since the Reformation, a Catholic Requiem Mass was celebrated in St Magnus Cathedral.

It was the funeral of poet and author George Mackay Brown, a man whose life and work was steeped in the history, faith and imagination of the Orkney Islands.

The historic funeral had been enabled the year before by the pioneering ecumenical work of Archbishop (then Bishop of Aberdeen) Mario Conti – who was the first Catholic bishop to preach in St Magnus Cathedral since the Reformation in 1995. This event marked a significant moment in the resumption of Catholic presence in the cathedral after centuries without Catholic rites there.

Brown deserves to be recognised not only as a great Scottish poet, but as a Catholic author of international stature. In June 1985, the University of Glasgow conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ‘in recognition of his wide variety of literary work, ranging from poetry to novels and from essays to scripts’.

George Mackay Brown was born on 17 October 1921 in Stromness, a town he preferred to call by its old Norse name, Hamnavoe. Brown was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a young man, making it difficult to hold regular employment. The illness was a blessing in disguise, however, as it gave him time to become a prolific writer.

Brown spent most of his life in Orkney and wrote primarily for and about the islands. His breakthrough novel Greenvoe (1972) depicts the destruction of a traditional community by a sinister modern project, reflecting Brown’s scepticism towards ideas of ‘progress’ that undermine human values.

For him, island life was not a limitation but a lens through which all of humanity could be viewed. ‘There are stories in the air here’, he wrote. ‘If I lived to be 500, there would still be more to write.’

An important influence on Brown was his time at Newbattle Abbey College near Edinburgh, where he was mentored by the poet Edwin Muir, a key figure in the Scottish Renaissance.

Like Muir, Brown believed that the Reformation, specifically Calvinism, had impoverished Scottish culture. In an early poem, he lamented ‘the Knox-ruined nation, / that poet and saint / must rebuild with passion’.

Although raised Presbyterian, Brown gradually found his way to the Catholic Church. As early as the 1940s, he was fascinated by the Catholic prisoners of war who built Orkney’s charming Italian Chapel.

Reading St John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua proved decisive. After years of reflection, and following further study at the University of Edinburgh, Brown was received into the Catholic Church in 1961.

Catholicism became central to Brown’s imagination. His writing is permeated by a sacramental worldview, where everyday actions participate in the sacred. Agriculture, fishing, birth, death and the cycle of seasons all point to spiritual realities.

Influenced by the Gospels and by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Brown saw the Eucharist as the centre of everything. In his novel Magnus (1973), the Mass is described as happening both in time and beyond it, gathering all of history into itself.

Requiem

George Mackay Brown died in 1996 after a long illness. His Requiem Mass in St Magnus Cathedral represents both the culmination of a personal faith journey and a wider recovery of Scotland’s Catholic heritage. His work continues to be discovered, quoted and set to music.

Brown once wrote that the poet’s task is to ‘carve the runes / then be content with silence’.

Thirty years after his death, the runes still speak.

Fond farewell to Fr Francis – the smiling priest

By Brian Swanson

With warm hugs, broad smiles and shared memories, former parishioners at St Patrick’s Anderston bid a fond farewell to Father Francis Okereke, one of the longest-serving Nigerian priests in the Archdiocese who is returning to his home diocese after 16 years in Glasgow.

In that time, apart from his time at St Patrick’s, he has served in St Charles, North Kelvinside, St Andrew’s Cathedral, and is currently parish priest of St Jude’s and St John Ogilvie, Barlanark and Administrator of St Maria Goretti, Cranhill.

And after concelebrating Mass in St Pat’s with Parish Priest Canon Paul Gargaro on the feast day of the parish patron, Father Francis, 55, said: “It was such joy for me to serve here as your brother, your priest and your father. I felt so appreciated by you and I thank for all for the love you have shown me.

“When I return home I will always pray for you and ask that you also keep me in your prayers.

“As you know I am going home to my own diocese in Nigeria but I will miss Glasgow and the people so much, but be assured that you will not be forgotten and that God loves you”.

Welcome

After being presented with a cheque by lifelong parishioner Rosaleen Hart, Father Francis told Flourish: “I will be very sorry to leave Glasgow and I will miss the people so much – they made me so welcome from the beginning of my ministry.

“But it’s now time to return home – it’s been my own decision after discussing it with my bishop who will decide in a few weeks where I am to serve.

“But wherever I go, Glasgow and its people will always be in my heart and my prayers.”

Fr Francis was one of the 24 priests ordained on the 24th of August 1996 for the Catholic Diocese of Orlu, in South Eastern Nigeria which is home to a million Catholics.

Margaret McElroy, chair of the Parish Council of St Jude’s and St John Ogilvie, who will also be making presentation to Father Francis, said: “We call him the smiling priest – you’ll never catch him without a smile. We’ll all miss him but we wish him all the very best for the future.”

Historic changes afoot for Scotland’s eight dioceses?

Scotland’s Catholic Church is facing potentially its biggest shakeup since the 1940s after the Vatican asked bishops to consider the possibility of merging dioceses.

The request from Rome could see a future where dioceses share resources or ultimately merge into larger more manageable units in order to carry out their mission more effectively.

Currently there are six dioceses and two archdioceses in Scotland.

The smallest is Argyll and the Isles with just 10,000 Catholics and the largest is Glasgow with just under 200,000. The newest are Paisley and Motherwell which were erected by Pope Pius XII in 1947.

Request

Following a request from the Vatican, the Bishops of Scotland met last month to reflect on how the structures of the Church in Scotland can best serve her mission in the years ahead, specifically whether the present situation of eight dioceses is sustainable.

A spokesman said: “We are all aware of the challenges before us – fewer clergy, changing patterns of practice, and increasing pressures on our diocesan resources, among other things. Yet our mission remains unchanged: to proclaim the Gospel and to lead our people to Christ.

“Two possible pathways are being proposed for careful discernment: developing deeper cooperation and the sharing of resources across dioceses within our present structures, or the merging of some dioceses.”

Each bishop will engage with his own diocese over the coming months for the first part of this process and responses will be given to Rome in the Autumn. In Glasgow the topic will initially be discussed at Deanery level and by the Council of Priests in coming months.

The practice of merging dioceses is increasingly common. In Wales last year Cardiff and Menevia merged to form the new Archdiocese of Cardiff-Menevia.

Ireland

In Ireland the dioceses of Galway and Clonfert are united under one bishop as are the dioceses of Achonry and Elphin.

In Italy some bishops are in charge of up to six dioceses. Cardinal Paolo Lojudice is technically head of the Archdiocese of Siena which is now merged with the dioceses of Colle di Val d’Elsa, Montalcino, Montepulciano, Chiusi and Pienza.

Archbishop Nolan said: “This is not simply an administrative exercise. It is a pastoral and missionary response to our changing landscape.

“This process will ensure the Church in Scotland will continue to grow ever more missionary, more Christ-centred, and more collaborative as we move forward together with confidence and renewed hope.”