Scottish Catholic Observer

Parish Priest Fr Dominic Towey welcomed Irish priest Fr Kevin Scallon and Sr Briege McKenna (right) to St John the Baptist, for the mission which ran from Monday to Thursday, with a special event which was open to all Catholic clergy and religious on Wednesday.

“The media has been quick to pick up on any negative news in our diocese in the recent past,” Fr Towey said. “This event, the biggest of its kind in our parish, is something very positive.”

Fr Scallon, CM, is a priest of the Vincentian Community who was born in Ireland. In his early years he ministered in both England and Nigeria. In 1976, while on the faculty of All Hallows College, he started the Intercession for Priests in Ireland. Since then he, along with Sr McKenna, has been ministering to priests and lay people across the globe.

Sr Briege, told the SCO on Tuesday that the event had been going very well.

“We’ve had a fantastic welcome,” she said. “ I love Scotland, we are here to evangelise through the preaching of the gospel, and the Church was full last night and full this morning and the last thing on Thursday night will be a Eucharistic healing service.”

She said that she and Fr Scallon have been around the world ‘five or six times’ doing healing ministries and priestly retreats.

“All we do is try and renew Catholic Faith thought the teachings of the Church, “she said. “But we’ve seen amazing things, miracles, real first class miracles. A young boy in Belfast who had a kidney full of cancer, a girl in Singapore who was wracked with cancer get up and walk out of the church, Muslims converted on the spot. It’s all from Evangelising in the real presence.”

The priest and the nun receive over a hundred invitations a month, from bishops and priests all over the world.

“Och, we work well together,” Sister said. “And we’re very fortunate that his order, the Vincentians, and mine the Sisters of St Clare have been very good at allowing us to pursue this ministry.”

Although she says that after 40 years of going all over the globe the pair are now slowing down, they were in Rome for the Papal Canonisations last month.

“Now I met St John Paul II many times and as young nun I remember St John XXIII but I was just thinking there they both lived their vocation to the full, guided holy sprit,” she said. “Now we can’t all be John Paul II or John XXXII, you can only give what you have inside, but you can be the best journalist you can be, the best nun you can be, the best teacher, or whatever it is. You can be Saints wherever you are.”