The Pope was represented by a special envoy at the quadricentenary celebrations of the martyrdom of Scotland's only post-Reformation saint.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor represented His Holiness at a celebratory Mass at St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow on March 10, which is the feast day of St John Ogilvie.
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia had extended a warm invitation to Pope Francis to attend the celebrations, but the Pope was unable to accept.
Archbishop Tartaglia used the occasion and the theme of martyrdom to address recent attacks on religious freedom, both in Scotland and across the world, which he described as “fragile, not always recognised, not always respected” and often yielding to sectarianism, persecution and violence. He said that the saint “was a standard bearer for the right relationship between the state and the religious freedom of its citizens”. He emphasised the duty of churches, faith communities and religious bodies to maintain a dialogue with government and civil authority “about what religious freedom and freedom of conscience mean in their circumstances”.
The son of a wealthy Calvinist landowner from Banffshire, John Ogilvie was educated and later converted in Europe. He became a Catholic in Louvain in 1596, when he was 17, and fourteen years later was ordained to the priesthood in Paris. He celebrated Mass clandestinely in Glasgow, but was betrayed, tortured and condemned, without divulging the names of fellow-Catholics. He was martyred by hanging and disembowelment at Glasgow Cross on 10 March 1615. In his address, Archbishop Tartaglia echoed the Pope in claiming St John Ogilvie for all Christians. “Ecumenical relations between the churches teach us how to live and express our baptismal unity with prayer, dialogue, shared witness in the name of peace and justice, common service to the poor and needy, and with huge courtesy and friendship. If the goal of the ecumenical movement, full visible communion, escapes us still and seems as far away as ever, there is a very real and effective ecumenism of friendship, prayer, witness and service which is a great good and which keeps the hope alive. Even as the Catholic community rejoices for St John Ogilvie, I offer St John Ogilvie tonight as a martyr for all Scots Christians, so that we may together reap the rich harvest of faith and love which his blood has sowed in our land."
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