In the years between the end of the First World War and the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (1965) there was a coherent and determined attempt by sections of the Catholic community, both laity and clergy, to redefine the character of the whole of the intellectual culture of Catholicism in Scotland. Through initiatives in politics, piety and in areas concerning national identity, Catholics sought to change not only the public image of the church but also the internal dynamics of the community and the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. There was no single grand project for the remaking of Catholicism: at different times and through different groups and different means, aspects of Catholicism were highlighted and then refashioned to suit changing circumstances and priorities. However, there is enough in the way of similarities both in outlook and in objectives to regard these distinctive changes as part of a whole movement to change the overall identity of Catholicism in Scotland.
Changes within the culture of Scottish Catholicism can, in part, be related to the domestic character of Catholicism as part of the distinctive heritage and make-up of the Catholic community in Scotland. However, they can also be seen as part of a European-wide, indeed global movement within Catholicism inspired by papal social teaching and the emergence of a more militant and visible Catholicism that challenged the great secular movements of liberalism, socialism and communism. This European dimension forms the secondary purpose of this book, namely to bring Scottish Catholicism into the mainstream of discussion of Catholicism as a European phenomenon.
This work examines the remaking of Catholicism in the context of four themes. The first is the development of Catholic social teaching and its interpretation on the ground in Scotland. The second is the emergence of a distinctive pattern in popular devotion and piety. The third is the role of the Catholic intelligentsia as exemplified by the Newman Association, which promoted change within the church and pursued a new identity for Scottish Catholicism. The fourth theme is the issue of historiography and the contributions of Catholic historians, both clerical and laity, to a revision of received wisdom on Scotland’s Catholic heritage.
Scottish Catholics were part of the universal Catholic Church and although their immediate circumstances were dictated by local priorities this did not mean that they existed in isolation from the concerns and ideas that were reshaping European Catholicism during this period. Quite contrary to the traditional parochial interpretations of Catholicism in Scotland, it is argued here that there was a remarkable degree of communication of ideas to and from continental Catholics. This is more clearly identifiable in clerical circles. As part of the training for the priesthood, many seminarians spent a period abroad at the Scots colleges in Rome or Paris. Similarly, foreign clerics were often encouraged to come to Scotland to bolster the quality of teaching at both the Scottish seminaries and in the local schools. Contacts with European trends in Catholicism for the laity were through a number of areas. The Catholic press was keen to focus on devotional and doctrinal initiatives for their readers, bringing awareness of the changes in piety and papal encyclicals as well as providing information on the state of the church on the continent. Scottish Catholics had the Caledonian Catholic Association that twinned individual parishes in Scotland with others in Europe. There was also the expansion of pilgrimages to holy sites, particularly Lourdes. The first Scottish National pilgrimage to Lourdes was in 1910; the first visitors from Scotland were clerics and teachers. It was from the National pilgrimage that the idea of a Scots pilgrimage centre at Carfin was first discussed.1
Outside of the practical developments that brought Scottish Catholicism more into the mainstream of European Catholicism, there is another purpose to the highlighting of this theme. There has been a trend in the study of Catholicism in the United Kingdom to place the British experience into context with the progress of the Catholic Church in Europe. Although the United Kingdom has a distinctive political and religious heritage, recent studies have revealed more similarities than differences in the general character of religion, especially in the era of industrialisation and urbanisation, throughout Europe.2 Great Britain shared with the rest of Europe, during the nineteenth century, a revival in religious zeal and new structures to accommodate the transition to urban living. Similarly at the end of the period under discussion, the same forces which were undermining traditional religious observation in Great Britain have been seen as the same as those in Europe generally. In the specific Catholic context, the study of the development of so-called ‘Ghetto Catholicism’ in Europe shows similarities between Catholic communities in their attempts to combat the growth of liberalism and communism, as well as rival denominations.3 Unfortunately, this trend has not reached the study of Scottish Catholicism. In one major study of Catholicism in Great Britain by Tom Buchanan for the collection Political Catholicism in Twentieth Century Europe, the Scottish experience is almost totally absent, although there is some discussion of Catholic developments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Oddly, Scottish themes are not so much ignored as relegated in a passing reference to seek guidance elsewhere.4 In response to this inexplicable omission and with regard to the historically strong links between Scottish and European Catholics, it seems appropriate to bring the study of Catholicism in Scotland into the mainstream of European Catholicism.
The focus of this work is the Catholic intelligentsia. This presents in the first instance a problem of definition; namely, who are the Catholic intelligentsia? The Catholic community maintained a small but influential professional corps, made up of both the laity and also importantly the clergy, creating in Gramscian terms, its own ‘organic intelligentsia’.5 The majority of the community was poor and where there were pockets of affluence, the priority was towards providing teachers, in particular, for the growing educational demands of the community and society. There were some Catholics in prominent positions in the legal and medical services, even a few university professors at Glasgow University. The intellectual contribution of the laity was not based on numbers. Defining ‘the intelligentsia’ too precisely is problematic for two reasons. First, those who could be regarded as part of the intelligentsia may not have seen themselves as part of a separate Catholic ‘chattering class’. Second, if we include every Catholic in the legal, medical and educational professions, we may find large numbers, whereas not every Catholic professional joined the Catholic Union, the Newman Association, or the Legion of Mary. This study examines primarily the qualitative contribution of the ‘Catholic intelligentsia’. There is reference, where appropriate, to the issue of membership numbers but the emphasis is not on quantitative aspects. In the case of the Catholic Union, there was no formal membership, and numbers are therefore scarcely a relevant issue. Quantitative research on membership of Catholic societies is a subject for a future scholar.
However, the intellectual infrastructure was less substantial than in England, where the converts from John Henry Newman’s Oxford Movement brought a cadre of educated and active individuals to the Catholic Church. However, as Dr Mary Heimann has argued, their impact on English Catholic culture may well have been less considerable than previously thought.6 England was the focus of the main journals of the Catholic intelligentsia with The Universe, The Tablet, The Catholic Fireside and latterly GK’s Weekly published south of the border. At Westminster, Catholic peers championed Catholic causes alongside the small cohort of Catholic members of the Commons.
The Scottish Catholic intelligentsia seems small in comparison to their English equivalents. However, if we look outside the laity and towards the clergy, there is a substantial amount of activity in redefining the character of Catholicism north of the border. It makes sense to examine the clergy and their contribution to Catholic life as it is from them that much of the spiritual, intellectual and cultural direction of the community comes. In the main it was the special clergy that were to dominate Catholic intellectual discourses. This was primarily due to a tradition of scholarship and also due to the immersive character of religious life in this period where the regular clergy had the responsibility for everyday rituals and celebrations. This work also examines the role of the main seminary at St Peter’s College founded by the first archbishop of the restored See of Glasgow. The influence of the seminary will be apparent throughout this work, as clerics were active in all the areas under discussion, from defining the local character of Catholic Action to contributing to the discussion of the role of Catholicism in Scottish history. The St Peter’s clerical academic staffs were invaluable in the development of the Carfin Grotto and the Legion of Mary, and were amongst the first to call for the establishment of the Newman Association in Glasgow. They were also pivotal in laying the scholarly foundations of the Scottish Catholic Historical Association (SCHA) before being overtaken by secular scholars.
The central object of this work is to explain the intellectual development of Catholicism and the impact of this throughout Scotland. There are two motives behind this study. First, the relative neglect of these sub-jects in existing works. There will be a more detailed discussion of this in the second part of this introduction; however, a few preliminary remarks are necessary. In the case of Catholic social teaching and Catholic Action in Glasgow, where there is discussion of the Catholic Union in the local politics of the Archdiocese, the overtly Catholic dimension is often submerged under the discussion of the ethnic dimension. The Catholic Union Advisory Bureaux (CUAB) has been totally ignored, despite its scale and its activity.7 Similarly, no study has been undertaken to examine the Scottish interpretation of Catholic social teaching. It is often taken for granted that once the Vatican had spoken, it was the job of the local hierarchy to get to work to implement the Pope’s instruction. In the distinctive social and political situation of Scotland, care was necessary to ensure that while Catholic social teaching was inculcated, it was carried out with the awareness of its impact on the larger Protestant community. In the case of devotion, the same assumptions and concerns are repeated. Again, there is an assumption that Roman or ultramontane practice and piety were import...