Scottish Catholic Observer

Catholics across Scotland are being asked to contribute again towards the Church’s share of the costs for Pope Benedict XVI’s highly successful four-day state visit to the UK in September.

Parish priests have been advised of the ongoing need to fundraise and Cardinal Keith O’Brien, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, will appeal for Scottish Catholics to once again show their generosity to help in the final part of this process when he speaks from a pastoral letter at the special Mass of Thanksgiving for the visit at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, on Sunday.

Thanksgiving Mass

Cardinal O’Brien will be joined at Sunday’s thanksgiving celebration for the Papal visit by Archbishop Faustino Sainz Muñoz, the Apostolic Nuncio to the UK, Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow and the bishops of Scotland.

The fundraising drive is one of the points the cardinal is expected to address during the celebrations.

“I am aware that in recent months you have been asked and responded generously to the request already made in a national collection and in contributing to the solidarity funds to assist with transport costs associated with the Pope’s visit,” Cardinal O’Brien says in his letter. “However, I am approaching you again today to appeal once more to your generosity. Although some of the costs are still to be finalised, we anticipate that once the reckoning has been done, there will still be a significant shortfall in funding to pay for the Scottish Church’s contribution towards the visit and we must fulfil our obligations.”

The cardinal goes on to say that he hopes parishioners will respond as best they can to a special collection this weekend, which will ‘enable us to cover the costs of a day which has already been recognised all over the world and by the Holy Father himself as an enduring testament to the faith, hope and love of the Catholic people of Scotland.’

‘Benedict bounce’

Pope Benedict’s UK visit began in Edinburgh on St Ninian’s Day, September 16, and research released last week hailed the visit of the Holy Father to Scotland’s capital city as a great success. Cardinal O’Brien goes on to state in the pastoral letter that ‘the Pope’s first day in Scotland set the tone for a highly successful and quite unforgettable visit to the United Kingdom as a whole.’

Professor Joe Goldblatt, from the International Centre for the Study of Planned Events based at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, has said that the majority of people responded positively to the Papal visit in Edinburgh.

“The majority of people believed that the reason for the success of the event was the excellent organisation of the visit, the opportunity to see Pope Benedict in person, and the very positive experience of a community coming together,” Professor Goldblatt said.  “When analysing the longer-term impact of the event, people said that they would have very positive memories of the event, but only a few believed that the event would help to transform negative images about the Catholic Church into positive ones.

“Overall, it would appear that although people were mixed in the personal benefits, people expressed the positive experience of togetherness and community that they derived from the event.”

Ongoing fundraising

The Catholic Church in the UK has already raised £6.5 million towards the cost of Pope Benedict’s visit but, given the overall cost to the Church is £10 million, a further £3.5 million remains to be raised.

The Church in Scotland will be asked to contribute a further £800,000 towards that total.

Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, said that congregations have already been advised that more money needs to be raised, and that one way of doing this would be special collections.

Mr Kearney added that, as a result of the shorter preparation time leading up to the visit, compared with the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982, it had always been anticipated that fundraising would continue after the event.

“There was never any prospect of raising all the money ahead of the visit and fundraising was already planned to run before, during and after the visit,” Mr Kearney said.

He confirmed that a national pastoral letter had gone out to parish priests across the country highlighting a request for continued fundraising and added that he hoped the Scottish contribution towards the Papal visit’s costs would soon be raised in full.

“A letter concerning the outstanding amount went out to parishes at the start of last month, asking for contributions,” Mr Kearney said. “There’s no clock ticking or deadline looming. The reality is, once we’ve past an event, you don’t want to wait too long to raise money, as it becomes harder to do that as the event becomes more distant.”

The government covered many of the Church’s contributions towards the Papal visit, with the money expected to be repaid by the end of the financial year.

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