On St. Andrew’s Day of the 1975 Holy Year a group of Scots priests concelebrated Mass in the Chapel of the Scots College in Rome.   The principal celebrant was Luigi Cardinal Traglia, Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, who had ordained all of them over a period of almost thirty years when he was Vicegerent of the Diocese of Rome between 1937 and 1965.   Forty-six Scotsmen received their ordination to the priesthood at the hands of Luigi Traglia and many of them were present on that memorable occasion in 1975 to celebrate the Holy Year together in their Alma Mater and, at the sign of peace, to shake the hand of the bishop who ordained them.  

Since we gathered on that carefree St Andrew’s Day in 1975 thirty of our number have died and, at time of writing (May 2011), sixteen of us remain in the land of the living. With this simple homage to a generation of Scozzesi comes an invitation, in the spirit of the Letter to the Hebrews, to think well of this diminishing cloud of witnesses.   We share the priesthood of Christ in a special way by reason of our Holy Orders.  

For years there hung unremarked on the wall of the Common Room of the Scots college in the Via delle Quattro Fontane a faded Papal Blessing, bestowed on the College by Pius XI.  The following is a free translation of the Holy Father’s blessing:

‘To those whom Rome once kept at a safe distance by building a wall,
we now extend a welcome and a paternal embrace’.

Our names follow with a few biographical details and obituaries where these exist.   To learn more simply click on the name of your choice.  If the details seem scant they will surely evoke something of the potential of a relatively small number of priests to influence the lives of many thousands of people.   The forty-six priests listed served in more than 150 parishes and chaplaincies  throughout Scotland.   No two of us were alike in personality nor were our parishes.   Nonetheless, it is a reasonable assumption that we preached the Gospel and administered the sacraments of the Church in essentially the same manner wherever we were.   The special unity which bound us by reason of our education and priestly ordination at the hands of one Roman bishop was shared with those later entrusted to our pastoral care.  This sacramental dialogue between priest and people has surely enriched us all.

Perhaps the best place to begin our story is with the prelate who ordained us, Luigi Traglia.   This is not so easily done.   For most of us our encounter with him was limited to the duration of our ordination Mass.  In mitigation, however, it could be argued that those who were ordained by him in those pre-Vatican II days felt that, by the time they reached the end of the ceremony, they had more than a passing acquaintance with the ordaining prelate. On a good Ember Day or Easter Vigil, the Mass of Ordination would include first clerical tonsure, four minor orders, sub diaconate, diaconate and priesthood and could last up to five hours.  In passing it should be noted that Traglia’s command of the Ceremoniale Episcoporum was such that it allowed him to proceed as if he were himself the author of the texts he recited with such fluency.   On occasion he would issue reprimands to intrusive photographers in such a manner as to give the impression that he was quoting the rubrics:   ‘Retro photographi!’ (Photographers get lost!)

Apart from these liturgical encounters, there were other occasions when we became better aware of the personality and stile of the man.   He was the Cardinal Protector of the Scots College in keeping with the Roman practice, and in this capacity he was the principal guest at the celebration of our patronal feast each November.   On these occasions, and on many others, he radiated a real sense of pride in his role and in his association with the College and its distinguished history.   This sense of pride was evidenced in a special way on the occasion of the Mass which he concelebrated with his Scots ordinands on St Andrew’s Day 1975.   His homily on that occasion rose to the occasion and revealed a prelate with a big heart and an instinctive awareness of the bond of unity in the priesthood of Christ and the uniqueness and dignity of each priest it had been his privilege to ordain.   His opening words set the tone:   ‘La Chiesa Romana ha sempre voluta bene agli Scozzesi…’  (The Church of Rome has always had a soft spot for the Scots…’.  

Luigi Traglia had spent his entire ministry in Rome and had been entrusted with some of the most important offices in the Roman Curia.   The following is an edited version of the landmarks in his career.

His Episcopal lineage can be traced back to Scipione Rebiba in the sixteenth century: