A Grand Scottish Welcome

Philippa Hitchen is currently in the United Kingdom awaiting the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday 16th September. She filed this report :

Just over 16 centuries ago, around the year 397 AD, a missionary bishop traveled from Rome to the remote, windswept shores of Scotland to strengthen local people in their Christian faith, first inherited from the Romans.
His name was Ninian and though little is known about his life or his mission there, his legacy as the evangeliser of southern Scotland is celebrated each year on September 16^th.
Now, on St Ninian’s day 2010, another bishop is coming from Rome to strengthen the Catholic community in the faith and to stress the vital role that religion can play, even is the most secular context that is the United Kingdom today.
Over the past year, the government, churches, schools and ordinary Catholics, led by Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien have been working closely together, planning “a grand Scottish spectacle”, to welcome Pope Benedict to this country, while at the same time raising funds for charities including two local cancer hospices and a feeding project for children in developing countries.
The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip may be meeting the Pope on his arrival at Edinburgh airport and Queen Elizabeth may be receiving him at her Holyroodhouse Palace for the first formal event of this visit, but it’s the St Ninian’s day parade through the central Prince’s Street that will provide the most vivid experience of Scotland’s history and traditions. Over a thousand pipers and hundreds of school children will lead the parade, clad in their colourful tartan dress …and as you may have heard, a new St Ninian’s day tartan design has been created especially for this occasion!
Taking part in the parade will also be dozens of characters in costumes charting the tumultuous history of Christianity in Scotland, including St Columba, St Margaret, Mary Queen of Scots, John Knox, and from more recent times the Olympic runner Eric Liddell, poet and writer George Mackay Brown and novelist Muriel Spark.
From the Scottish capital, famed for its international festivals and listed amongst the UNESCO world heritage sites, the Pope then travels across to Glasgow, the working class heartland of Catholicism, where tens of thousands of Irish immigrants fled with their families in past centuries to escape famine and hardships back home.
This week thousands more Irish Catholics are making the journey over to Glasgow to take part in the Mass that Pope Benedict will celebrate in Bellahouston Park, before flying down to London on Thursday evening.
The Pope may only be spending about ten hours on Scottish soil, but the people north of the border here from all different churches and backgrounds are determined that this will be one visit he’ll never forget!

Awaiting the Pope’s arrival in the United Kingdom, I’m Philippa Hitchen