Catholic bishops of Scotland joined members of parliament at a special exhibition in Holyrood last Tuesday (November 27) to mark the contribution of the Church to Scottish society.
The event, sponsored by Elaine Smith MSP, highlighted the extensive work carried out by agencies and commissions of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland and its associated organisations. Bishop Hugh Gilbert, president of the Bishops Conference, said: ‘We are very grateful to Elaine Smith, MSP, for sponsoring this event and to Aileen Campbell, Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government, for her support. ‘The Church in Scotland welcomed this opportunity to showcase at least something of what we do. The Church is a worldwide, complex and many-faceted institution but in the end, it is people; names, faces, bodies and souls. It is people helping people, not just from cradle to grave, but from before birth to after death, and everything in between.
‘What we could never do as individuals we can do together from prayer to foodbanks, from the kind word to the very handson practical, from here to places in the world hit by disaster or oppression.’