A £500,000 project to restore murals at the former Mansfield Church in Edinburgh by Phoebe Anna Traquair, a leading figure in the arts and crafts movement of the 1890s, has been completed.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 7:29 PM

Dead bodies could be freeze-dried and shaken to a fine powder under proposals to introduce a new, more eco-friendly method of corpse disposal to the UK. The process, which is known as promession, has been developed in Sweden and aims to address the shortage of burial spaces and reduce the mercury pollution created by dental fillings during cremation. A spokesman for the Church of Scotland said: "There do not appear to be any theological implications with this method of disposal, but it sounds like an appropriate thing from an environmental viewpoint."
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 9:15 PM

A charity which launched a Scottish fundraising appeal for victims of the Pakistan earthquake has been ordered to produce an annual return and to submit its accounts to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator after it emerged that it was not correctly registered. Glasgow the Caring City has also been forced to admit that claims it had struck a deal with the charity Islamic Relief to launch a single co-ordinated appeal were inaccurate. And there was confusion last night over whether it was still running the phone cash appeal it launched in a blaze of publicity on Monday in conjunction with a Christian organisation, World Emergency Relief. Caring City's chief executive, the Rev Neil Galbraith - whose son, Ross, is the charity's only paid employee, on £30,000 a year - claimed there had been problems in registering the charity because the Inland Revenue had moved offices.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 4:09 PM

The Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly has spoken of his "shock and sorrow" on hearing of the devastation caused by the South Asian earthquake. The Right Rev David Lacy said: "I urge people here to remember the Kirk's partner in the region, the Church of Pakistan, which has joined with Church World Service in mobilising food and shelter kits for 15,000 families made homeless by the earthquake and organising supplies to set-up medical camps to serve 100,000 people. The relief workers need our prayers as they work in extremely difficult and stressful circumstances."
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 10:55 PM

A minister who has been one of the fiercest critics of the Church of Scotland's general assembly is a candidate to become moderator next year. In 1998, the Rev John Chalmers said: "The present general assembly is like a collection of cardboard cut-outs sitting around, nodding heads and not doing anything." The other candidate for the post, Rev Alan McDonald, has previously criticised Scottish Executive ministers over the detention of children at the Dungavel centre in Lanarkshire.
Source: The Herald. posted at 10:41 PM

The process towards sainthood for the Blessed Margaret Sinclair, a factory worker who became a nun and cared for Edinburgh slum dwellers in the early 20th century, moves a step forward this weekend. On the 80th anniversary of her death, sealed archives containing interviews with her family, friends, work colleagues and her former boyfriend, are to be opened to the public. The files reveal how Vatican-appointed inquisitors grilled 30 of Margaret's companions over six weeks in 1952 to build up a profile of the woman from Blackfriars Street to whom miracles were being attributed. The taskforce was led by a Franciscan friar sent from Rome as the promoter of the faith - or "devil's advocate" - to ensure there was no scandal which might emerge to damage her canonisation cause.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 10:20 PM

The Church of Scotland today revealed the names of the two candidates in the running to become the next Moderator of the General Assembly. They are the Rev John Chalmers, former minister of Palmerston Place Church at Edinburgh's West End and now working at church headquarters, and the Rev Alan McDonald, minister of St Leonard's Church in St Andrews, who spent four years as the Kirk's voice on political issues. The final choice will be made on October 25 by the Kirk's Committee to Nominate the Moderator. Both candidates are seen as establishment figures from the liberal wing of the Kirk. The Rev Ian Watson, secretary of evangelical grouping Forward Together, said: "Both Alan and John will make good Moderators. However, it would seem once again no-one associated with the evangelical wing has been nominated."
Sources: Edinburgh Evening News, Church of Scotland news release. posted at 5:52 PM

Planning permission for the removal of pews from two Black Isle churches is likely to be refused by Highland Council. The Church of Scotland wants to remove the traditional wooden kirk pews from 18th century Resolis Church at Balblair and Urquhart Church, Alcaig, both of which are up for sale. Urquhart Church in Ferintosh was built in 1795 and Resolis Church in 1767.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 11:38 PM

The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund has pledged £100,000 to help communities hit by the South Asia earthquake, which is thought to have killed at least 20,000 people. Mercy Corps, which has headquarters in Edinburgh and North America, is involved in the relief effort. And in a message sent to the Vice Consul for Pakistan in Glasgow, Cardinal Keith O'Brien has offered condolences and the promise of prayers to the people of Pakistan.
Sources: BBC Scotland News, Scottish Catholic Media Office news release. posted at 11:35 PM

Glasgow City Council's plans to survey 200 pupils on their sexual behaviour is "an announcement of defeat, an acknowledgement that Glasgow has a serious teenage pregnancy problem with 8.7% of births being to under-16s, among the highest in the developed world ... Sex education hasn't worked ... If so many Scottish teenagers get pregnant, perhaps it's because they don't feel they've anything to lose."
Source: Sunday Herald. posted at 7:31 PM

Feature on the three-day Scottish Christian Resources Exhibition, expected to attract more than 3,000 visitors in Edinburgh this week.
Source: Sunday Times. posted at 7:16 PM

A fundamentalist Christian group is to field candidates against every MSP in Scotland with the help of £500,000 from a mystery benefactor. The Scottish Christian party, formally known as Operation Christian Vote (OCV), believes it can win up to six seats in Holyrood at the 2007 election. The party - founded by the Rev George Hargreaves, a Pentecostal minister - will scrutinise MSPs' voting records on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, homosexual rights and the controversial family bill, which will lead to quicker divorces.
Source: Sunday Times. posted at 7:13 PM

Rev Dr John Mantle was consecrated and installed as the new Scottish Episcopalian Bishop of Brechin today at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Dundee.
Source: Scottish Episcopal Church news release. posted at 6:29 PM

Cardinal Keith O'Brien will tomorrow use the occasion of the annual 'Red Mass' for the legal profession at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh to launch a strongly worded challenge to Scottish parliamentarians "intent on enacting unjust and immoral laws."
Source: Scottish Catholic Media Office news release. posted at 6:27 PM

Budding young artists were rewarded for their creative skills last week, following a competition run by Peterhead's Old Parish Church to help adorn its bi-centenary banner. All schoolchildren were invited to take part in the artistic challenge to create a biblical scene to be depicted on the banner to celebrate the church's 200th birthday in 2006.
Source: Buchan Observer. posted at 11:12 PM

The 325th anniversary of St Andrew's Church, Tongue, following rebuilding by Donald Mackay, Master of Reay, in 1680, was celebrated at the morning service last Sunday. Several visitors joined the regular worshippers to be welcomed by the minister, the Rev John Mackie. Centrepiece of his children's address was a cannonball which was fired from the British ship Sheerness at the French ship Hazard as it lay grounded near the mouth of the Kyle of Tongue in 1746 during a famous local incident of the Jacobite rebellion.
Source: Northern Times. posted at 11:01 PM

A discarded cigarette is believed to have caused the blaze which destroyed Scotland's oldest Orange Club in Irvine, which has been in regular use as a meeting place for the Orange Order since 1851.
Source: Irvine Herald. posted at 10:49 PM

Reverend Harry Findlay has conducted his last service at St Mark's Parish Church in Coltness, ending 38 years as minister of the church.
Source: Wishaw Press. posted at 10:44 PM

A 127 year old pew has been stolen from Cockenzie Methodist Church.
Source: East Lothian Courier. posted at 10:39 PM

Plans to build a private chapel at a countryside shooting retreat have been given the green light by East Lothian Council. The owners of Mayshiel Lodge wanted to build a place of worship, seating up to 30, where grouse shooters could go to pray after a day's sport.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 7:45 PM

David Bates, 20, was sentenced to four months detention in a young offenders' institute after he admitted shouting sectarian abuse at a priest before punching him in the face and chasing him. Father Stephen Dunn, 43, of the Sacred Heart Church, took refuge in a known Rangers pub, the Keystane Bar in Bridgeton, following the unprovoked attack in London Road, Glasgow. Bates had committed two previous sectarian attacks.
Source: BBC Scotland News. posted at 7:36 PM

Glasgow-born Rev Donald Smith, who has worked in Peru since 1976, was yesterday named the moderator-designate of next year's general assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.
Source: The Herald. posted at 7:31 PM

A Catholic priest today appealed for the return of three chalices stolen from his church during a raid. Thieves stole a heavy safe from St Margaret's Church in Gorebridge which housed the communion chalices, valued at £1500.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 3:50 PM

Obituary of Monsignor Daniel Simpson, born 8 January, 1922, in Edinburgh; died 21 September, 2005, in Edinburgh, aged 84. The death of Monsignor Daniel Simpson was not only mourned in Scotland but also in Africa, and especially in the province of Bauchi in northern Nigeria, where he spent most of his ministry.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 3:35 PM

The Catholic Church in Scotland has published a new guide to the Bible which explains that some passages are not literally true. Worshippers are being warned not to expect "total accuracy" from the Bible, according to a new teaching document, The Gift of Scripture, published by the Catholic Bishops of Scotland in collaboration with the Bishops' Conference in England and Wales. While basic tenets such as the Virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are still deemed to be factually correct, areas such as the Garden of Eden and the creation of a woman from Adam's rib are dismissed as simply "symbolic language". In the United States there is a debate among some Christians who wish the story of creation as told in the Book of Genesis to be taught as an alternative to the theory of evolution as explained by Charles Darwin. However, the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which gives two differing stories of creation, cannot be considered as "historical", according to Scotland's Bishops. Other examples of passages which are not to be taken literally are the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the final book in the Bible, which details the end of the world. However, the bishops said: "Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come." Father Michael McMahon, a lecturer in scripture and a priest of the Paisley Diocese, who co-wrote the report, said: "In order to believe that every passage of the Bible is the literal truth, you have to suspend your critical faculties. You have to suspend the God-given ability to reason."
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 3:29 PM

A Glasgow church destroyed in a fire three years ago has become a hi-tech community hub after being rebuilt for £2 million. The Victory Christian Centre in Govan now has an auditorium that looks more like a music venue than a place of worship. The building also features a gym, showers, meeting rooms, a snooker room and a separate caretaker's area. The centre, which is also used by community groups, belongs to the Scottish branch of the Assemblies of God UK and has a Pentecostal congregation. Pastor Alex Gillies said: "We created a company called Victory Construction and employed an architect to design the building for our needs."
Source: Evening Times, Glasgow. posted at 7:39 PM

Pupils as young as 13 are to be asked explicit questions about their sex lives as part of a survey of attitudes towards health and relationships. The controversial consultation, compiled by NHS Greater Glasgow and Glasgow City Council, is part of a drive to reduce spiralling teenage pregnancies and sexual diseases in the city. Father Joseph Chambers, vice-president of the Catholic Education Commission, has written to the council raising concerns about the questions and a lack of consultation with the church, which has responsibility for the moral education of children in its schools. He said: "There are several sections within the document which appear to me to be deeply flawed and could have been better prepared with even the minimum of consultation. The document contains a range of moral issues which are incoherent, confused and unrelated, leaving me wondering how on earth they will improve teenage sexual health in Glasgow. Furthermore, I wonder how many parents ... would be happy with a child in S3 being asked if he or she had taken part in oral sex."
Source: The Herald. posted at 6:52 PM

The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true. The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect "total accuracy" from the Bible. "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision," they say in The Gift of Scripture.
Source: The Times. posted at 6:37 PM

An Aberdeenshire congregation is to gift a 17th century kirk bell to Kasseh Presbyterian Church in Ghana. The bell once rang from Logie Coldstone Church, which closed its doors in 1984 and is now a private house. The minister of Cromar Parish Church, the Rev Lawrie Lennox, explained: "Logie Coldstone is now part of the parish of Cromar, and we felt that, rather than have the bell gather more dust, it should be used in a new church."
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 7:57 PM

Rev Julie Woods has been welcomed as Church of Scotland minister for the parish of Elgin High, Birnie and Pluscarden. The mother-of-three was a buyer and manager for an independent children's clothing shop in Banchory before taking up the call of the ministry.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 7:43 PM

A medieval-style labyrinth has been created in Broughton St Mary's church in Edinburgh. The minister, Joanne Hood, believes the interactive puzzle she has installed on the floor of the 19th-century church will attract younger people who may be put off by traditional methods of worship. Her idea coincides with the official launch this week of an outdoor labyrinth in George Square Gardens, which is set to be opened by the Right Rev Richard Holloway, chair of the Scottish Arts Council, on Thursday.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 7:21 PM

A new science laboratory has been built at a school in Uganda with money raised by parishioners from St Columba's, Cupar, and St Mathews, Auchtermuchty. The new facility at Uganda Martyrs Secondary School in Kakumiro was opened by Father Pat McInally.
Source: Fife Herald. posted at 10:29 PM

Stirling Council planners are recommending approval of proposals by Dunblane Christian Fellowship to build a community workshop and activity hall next to the Victoria Hall at Station Road.
Source: Stirling Observer. posted at 10:25 PM

Police have charged a man over an alleged incident in which a priest watching a Loyalist parade was pushed. Bands marched past St Ninian's Church in Hillhouse, where chapel members had just celebrated mass with their priest, Father Gerry Bogan.
Source: Hamilton Advertiser. posted at 10:20 PM

A Scottish Episcopalian specialising in ecclesiastical vestments has started a new line in tartan stoles. Their maker, Ruth Black, the wife of Canon Len Black, Rector of St Michael and All Angels, Inverness, has already made three, all individually designed. They cost upwards of £150, and, she says, orders are rolling in. Mrs Black has also made pulpit and lectern falls, banners, burses, chasubles, veils, copes, and mitres.
Source: Church Times. posted at 10:13 PM

Rev David Lacy, moderator of the Church of Scotland's general assembly, has described plans by the Scottish executive to liberalise licensing laws as "ludicrous", claiming they will lead to a further rise in drunkenness and violence. He said the country was already plagued by violent crime, caused by binge-drinking and a generation of "selfish" youngsters. Joseph Devine, the Catholic Bishop of Motherwell, backed Lacy's comments, adding: "I rather suspect the age group we are interested in - the younger generation who become involved in alcohol-related crime - will drink more, not less. Family breakdown and the rootlessness of youth, their lack of a sense of guilt, are also to blame."
Source: Sunday Times. posted at 3:22 PM

St Peter's College, the Catholic seminary in Cardross which has lain abandoned since its closure in 1980, only 14 years after opening - heads Prospect magazine's list of the 100 most influential buildings constructed in Scotland since the end of the Second World War.
Source: Scotland on Sunday. posted at 3:14 PM

A musical code said to be hidden in mystical symbols carved into the stone ceiling of Rosslyn Chapel has been unravelled for the first time in more than 500 years. Scottish composer Stuart Mitchell claims to have taken 20 years to crack a complex series of codes, which have mystified historians for generations. The codes were hidden in 213 cubes in the ceiling of the chapel, where parts of the film of Dan Brown's best-seller The Da Vinci Code were shot this week. Each cube contained different patterns to form an unusual 6½-minute piece of music for 13 medieval players.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 5:25 PM

The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF) is to celebrate its 40th anniversary with a lecture by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. SCIAF is the official overseas aid and development agency of the Catholic Church in Scotland, began its work in 1965 with just a handful of volunteers but now, although continuing to rely heavily on voluntary support, has more than 30 full-time workers. The charity has directed more than £40 million towards emergency and development programmes.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 5:12 PM