Scottish Catholic Observer

The life of a priest can often be divided neatly into chapters. Due to the all-encompassing nature of the vocation, each new posting marks a distinctive new start. For the new Bishop of Dunkeld, leaving Edinburgh after 30 years, Bishop Stephen Robson’s installation yesterday was the beginning of a new book entirely.

After being an auxiliary bishop in St Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese for 18 months, Bishop Robson said he was ‘utterly gob smacked’ but ‘absolutely delighted’ when he was announced as the new Bishop of Dunkeld. “It’s very humbling,” he told the SCO ahead of his official installation yesterday, when he left St Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese for his new role. “You really feel like the Pope is putting his trust in you. I’ve already had a wonderful experience of welcome from the people there. I did know the people there had been without a bishop for a long time.

He wishes his previous archdiocese well. “Archbishop Cushley is going to do a wonderful job leading the Archdiocese [of St Andrews and Edinburgh] forward,” he said.

Learning curve

Bishop Robson, 62, admits his knowledge of Dunkeld has grown exponentially, in the past month, since the announcement of him taking over from Bishop Emeritus Vincent Logan was made on December 13 2013.

“Well you do have a substantial indigenous Irish and former Irish population who came to Dundee to work in the jute mills,” he said. “And Dundee is a city that has been in decline over the past 30 years but is now on its way back up. There’s a lot of regeneration, a thriving cultural scene and the universities are a very powerful presence. The old adage of jute, jam and journalism, well those things are still there, but my sense is that this is very much an up and coming city.”

Dunkeld, hailed by many as Scotland in miniature, stretching from east to west, Highland to Lowland.“In the broader diocese there is a good mixture of city communities and beautiful rural communities,” the bishop said. “I think it has some of the most remarkable scenery in Scotland, especially Perthshire. So you have rural and city parishes, both with their own challenges and endearments.”

Challenges

The biggest challenge Bishop Robson sees ahead of him as Bishop of Dunkeld is to restore the confidence of people in their Faith, so they can be ‘self confidently Catholic’ in a world where we are seen as ‘an increasingly odd minority.’

“Being a Catholic today is quite a difficult thing,” he said. “Society makes it challenging to live as a Faithful Catholic so we need to give people the confidence to realise it’s okay to be a Catholic and live as a modern person. In fact, not only is it okay but it is actually all the more reason for Catholics to stand up in civic life and be counted.”

Fortunately, he has a great ally in this task in the form of the Holy Father, who he believes is providing an inspiring model to lay Catholics.

“Pope Francis has won over the vast majority of people out there just by his way of doing things, but he knows he is not the focus,” Bishop Robson said. “It is like John the Baptist, you just point the way to Christ and the local bishop has to do that too.  Many things in this life purport to have the answers to happiness, but none of them do and in the end they all fall away, only Christ can bring us salvation.”

He is well aware that that message is one many Scots are not receptive to at this time.

“[Scotland] is a very secular environment,” Bishop Robson said. “The heart of Church is family, whether the family of the parish or at home, what we would call the domestic Church. But it is hard to live a faithful family life when so many different models are being proposed by society. It is a challenge for a lot of good Catholic people, we know what is right but alternative models of living tempt people. Fidelity lies at the heart of married life and priesthood, all vocations really, but I think people are finding that more difficult to live out these days.”

He believes the Church needs ‘new pastoral strategies to fill people with confidence, to live this way of life which is so challenging but also so rewarding.’

“I think our pastoral strategies will be dominated by support for marriage and family care for those whose marriages don’t work out well,” he said. “We have an excellent system of primary and secondary schools in Dunked and that is a great start because it can give young people the confidence to be known as Catholics and also convince them of the Christian alternative to what society proposes.”

Work to be done

Stepping into a diocese that has been without a bishop for several years, Bishop Robson is well aware there is much work to be done.

“Bishop Logan introduced a tremendous number of initiatives, and Canon [Basil] O’Sullivan did a tremendous job as administrator, but there will be things to do,” he said. “I think the most important thing is to see, judge and act, and that has to be the order. Take stock, consider, then act. You cannot impose ideas from outside until you know the people and the priests. And there are a lot of positive things going on in Dunkeld, for example, I think the new St Ninian Institute is something with enormous potential.”

As is the case across Scotland, the bishop is well aware of the need for the Church to change, to respond to shifts in population and declining numbers of priests.

“I think that has already begun, there has already been some rationalisation in Dundee itself.” he said. “The big challenge, however, is shortage of priests. Obviously it is always better to have a priest, but what makes communities viable, are all sorts of things. If a parish is not centered on Christ it’s not a Eucharistic community. It’s no good having just a priest running all over the countryside, one of the problems with having fewer priests is they end up focused on Sacramental functions, which are very important but are only part of the priest’s role.”

Vocations

The bishop is firmly committed to growing vocations but is aware that can be a tricky row to hoe.

“Obviously, vocations are at the heart of any bishop’s concerns,” he said. “You plant seeds but may not get results for seven, eight years. The Lord provides but we have to do our bit, too. I have met the most fantastic young people in our schools and universities, so I don’t think the Lord has stopped calling people, we need to find new ways of getting the call out there.  It has to be a priority because we’re a Eucharistic church, and for the Eucharist we need priests.”

Bearing these challenges in mind, it is fortunate that the Dunkeld Bishop, former parish priest at SS John Cantius and Nicholas in St Andrews and Edinburgh, has taken on an extremely wide range of priestly roles.

“I’ve had a good range of experiences, of priestly formation, education, parish work, curial work,” he said. “I’ve been a charity trustee and worked on the Bishops’ Conference, so I do feel prepared but you can never be prepared enough. Every context has its own unique aspects, some gifts are used one moment and not another. So for me it really comes back to seeing, judging and acting.”

Experiences

One aspect of his experience that Bishop Robson has found especially challenging has been his role as auxiliary bishop in St Andrews and Edinburgh, a period he describes as ‘the toughest of his priesthood.’

“Being a bishop [there] for the past 18 months, in the aftermath of Cardinal [Keith] O’Brien’s departure—which I was very sad about—has been very, very difficult,” he said. “I knew him for 36 years… It was extremely difficult to deal with. There [has been] anger and frustration and I was first in line to face that from other people. Then the situation needed be cleared up, and that was very hard, too. But you do your bit and run the race and then someone else picks up the baton. One thing I have learned about being a priest is no one is indispensible because we are not doing our work, we are doing God’s work.”

Despite how tough this period has been for him he says there have been ‘graces,’ including visiting schools and parishes and his work for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, including being on the board of SCIAF, a charity he is hugely proud to be involved with.

“It is a wonderful organisation, very slick, very competent and very professional,” he said. “They have tremendous people working there and I cannot get over the generosity of Scottish Catholics. SCIAF has received £850,000 for the Philippine typhoon appeal, which is just incredible and that money goes where it is most needed, because SCIAF can plug into the Caritas network. It’s so impressive and I feel humble to be a wee cog in their machine.”

While preparing to be installed as Bishop of Dunkeld, Bishop Robson has been full of enthusiasm and said he was ‘looking forward to getting round the schools, the parishes, getting to know everyone’ and to listening.

“Mind you I am 62,” he added with a smile. “In other professions you reach 60 and start thinking about retirement, but the priesthood is not a profession, so we start work when most people start winding down. I still feel young inside though, so as long as my body holds out I will do the very best I can.”

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