Scottish Catholic Observer

‘Alive with Augustinian family feeling’ is how the SCO found St Joseph’s Broomhouse, Edinburgh where Fr Kevin Lowry (above left) is a newly installed parish priest.

The parish, the only Augustinian house in Scotland, is just the latest to be visited by the SCO as part of our parish talk initiative to take the newspaper’s message out into the dioceses, and our circulation associate Steve Lavery was hugely impressed by St Joseph’s very welcoming and friendly atmosphere.

“The parishioners were lovely,” he said. “There was a great atmosphere around the place, you could tell they all knew each other and the priests and have a good rapport. It was really good to see.”

Fr Kevin Lowry, who moved to the parish five months ago to become parish priest, said St Joseph’s is famed throughout the Augustinian order for its hospitable atmosphere and good-natured people.

“It is a very friendly welcoming parish,” he said. “Full of wonderful people, I think it is known throughout the order for that and I think all the Augustinians who have served here have found that to be the case.”

That welcoming nature is shown by the diverse nature of the parish that now includes families from India and Africa alongside those who have been born and bred in Edinburgh. Whatever their origin’s though, Fr Lowry stressed that since coming to St Joseph’s he had been impressed by the ‘particularly strong Faith’ of all the people. “They have a wonderful Faith,” he said.

The parish was founded in 1950, and the Augustinians moved there from Currie and Balerno in 1995. Fr Lowry said he believed the parishioners were very close to his order, which is represented at St Joseph’s, by himself, Fr George Donaghy, Fr George Stibbles, the prior and one of only two Scottish priests in the order, and Br Barnaby Johns.

“They are very close to the Augustinians,” he said. “There is strong association with a lot of connections which I think does makes the parish distinctive.”

The Augustinian connection works for St Joesph’s in many, ways not least of which is regular parish trips to the Augustinian retreat house in San Gimignano in Tuscany.

Unsurprisingly the laity are also very involved in the parish with a host of active groups there including a prayer group, St Monica’s Ladies Guild, SSVP, Little Church (children’s liturgy), the parish pastoral council and a music group among others.

Fr Lowry said that the role of the laity in the parish is a ‘strong feature,’ as is the close links with the local primary school, St Joseph’s.

“The laity do take a prominent role,” he said. “There is a lot of laity involvement and, more than that, leadership in the parish. But I cannot take credit for that, I have just inherited it from previous Augustinians and we just have to try and keep it going.”

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Editor’s note: St Joseph’s is in Broomhouse, not Broomhill as stated in the SCO on June 22.