Resignation of the Bishop of Dunkeld – Catholic Truth Laments Huge Loss to Catholics in Scotland
Editor writes…
Over the years, from time to time, I’ve had occasion to write to Bishop Robson and he has been unfailingly courteous. We celebrated his positive attitude to Catholic Tradition recently here, and his generous provision of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and sacraments is well known within traditional Mass-going circles. He will be sorely missed. The Bishop’s resignation has not yet been published on the Scottish Catholic Media Office (SCMO) website, but the Twitter fans are reporting it, as it appears on the Vatican bulletin here.
We must now focus on praying for a happy retirement for this wonderful Bishop, and for the appointment of a worthy successor – no easy task.
St John Ogilvie, pray for us!
Your thoughts…
Comments (28)
I’m sorry for this news.
Marcetetitet,
I too am very sorry to hear this news today. It’s almost like a bereavement since we only have one bishop in Scotland who is known to favour the traditional Mass – and that is Bishop Robson. This is very sad news for Scotland.
The following email has just been received from the Scottish Catholic Media Office…
RESIGNATION AND RETIREMENT OF BISHOP STEPHEN ROBSON OF THE DIOCESE OF DUNKELD
28 December 2022
The Vatican has today (28 December 2022) announced that Pope Francis has accepted a request from Bishop Stephen Robson, the Bishop of Dunkeld, to be able to retire early on health grounds.
From today, the Diocese of Dunkeld is now vacant (sede vacante), and Bishop Robson is now the Emeritus Bishop of Dunkeld.
Since the Holy See is not yet at the point of being able to nominate and appoint a new diocesan Bishop, the task now falls to the College of Consultors, a sub-set of the Council of Priests of the Diocese of Dunkeld, to elect a Diocesan Administrator from among the priests of the diocese who will have responsibility for the day to day running of the diocese. The Consultors have eight days in which to fulfil this requirement.
Commenting on the decision, Bishop Robson said:
“Since I came to the diocese in 2013, priests, people, religious and deacons have all been very good to me, and I have tried to serve them as best I can. However, I am now almost 72 years of age and although three years short of the normal retirement age I am, as you might expect, sad to have come to the conclusion that I no longer have the strength necessary to carry on effectively shepherding the diocese.”
Bishop Robson added:
“However, I am happy to say that the diocese is in relatively good shape, and I have every confidence that a good, younger, and fitter priest will be selected by the Pope to carry on the work of pastoring and feeding the People of God by means of the Word of God and the Sacraments. I thank the Holy Father for allowing me to retire, and I wish every blessing and grace on the good priests, deacons, religious and people of Dunkeld.”
ENDS
I have emailed Bishop Robson to give him the link to this thread, and offer our sincere good wishes on his retirement, assuring him that he will be missed.
We’re seeing more and more relatively good bishops retiring early now. I believe it is connected to the disillusionment and stress of working under Francis – never knowing what madness is going to be imposed next. It’s the same in the secular employment world. You get a bad boss and the staff leave.
WF,
I think there may be something in what you say. It must be very hard for bishops who are not in tune with Francis’s agenda to work in their dioceses. The modernists are in the majority right now so it must be an uphill battle to deal with the dissent etc which is now really in-built into people – they don’t see it as dissent, that’s the tragedy of how the faith has come to be lost. It’s all very sad.
Well, Bishop Robson says in the diocesan statement that he is retiring on grounds of ill health, so I suppose at 72, that’s likely enough.
Michaela,
That may well be. But bishops are hardly likely to use their official retirement notice to list any complaints. I think neither would the majority of lay people. When I retired from my last job, I could have used up a ream of paper citing all the reasons I was taking early retirement and what was wrong with the organisation, but it would have been pointless. In the event I just said that I was retiring from ‘x’ date and that was that.
Dear Friends
I wonder what his replacement will be like???
Every blessing
Michael 🙏
Michael,
I can’t see Bishop Robson’s replacement being in his traditional mould. I imagine the rest of the bishops in Scotland will make sure they get one of their own kind, sad to say.
Josephine
I am sad to say that l am very much in agreement with your remarks.
Michael 🙏
N O T I C E. . .
Francis asks prayers of Pope Benedict, who is apparently very ill. So, now we need to pray, not only for a good bishop to replace Bishop Robson, but for the kind of true repentance that will gain spiritual safety for the Pope who gave us Francis…
This is from the Byzantine ritual for the sick & dying and posted by the Institute of Catholic Culture:
✠ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
O Lord our God, who in Your ineffable wisdom created man, fashioning him out of the dust and adorning him with comeliness and goodness, as an honorable and heavenly acquisition, to the exaltation and magnificence of Your glory and kingdom, that You might bring him into this image and likeness; but inasmuch as he sinned against the command of Your statutes, having accepted the image but not preserved it, and because, also, evil shall not be eternal: You ordained remission unto the same, through Your love toward mankind; and that this destructible bond, which as the God of our fathers You sanctified by Your divine will, should be dissolved, and that his body should be dissolved from the elements of which it was fashioned, but that his soul should be translated to that place where it shall take up its abode until the final Resurrection.
Therefore we pray to You, the Father who is from everlasting, and immortal, and unto Your Only-begotten Son, and unto Your all-holy Spirit, that You deliver Your servant Benedict, Pope of Rome, from the body unto repose, also entreating of Your ineffable goodness forgiveness if he has in any way, whether in knowledge or in ignorance, offended Your goodness, or is under the ban of a priest, or has angered his parents, or broken a vow, or fallen into devilish imaginations and shameful sorceries, through the malice of the crafty demon: Yea, O Master, Lord our God, hear me a sinner and Your unworthy servant in this hour, and deliver Your servant Benedict from this intolerable sickness which holds him in bitter infirmity, and give him rest where the souls of the righteous dwell. For You are the repose of our souls and of our bodies, and to You do we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
And I like this prayer from the Latin Tradition:
Most Merciful Jesus, Lover of souls, I pray Thee by the agony of Thy Most Sacred Heart and by the sorrows of Thy Immaculate Mother, cleanse in Thy Blood the sinners of the whole world who are now in their agony and will die this night (day).
Heart of Jesus, once in agony, have mercy on the dying.
And this one:
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Adorable Face of Thy Beloved Son for the honor and glory of Thy Holy Name and for the salvation of all men (especially Pope Benedict XVI).
N.B. Parentheses were my addition.
Our Lord told Sister Mary of St. Peter that one could offer up His Holy Face for any intention, so I add my intentions at the end.
St. Joseph, intercede for Benedict XVI who received your name in Baptism!
St. Michael and All the Angels, come to his aid !
Dear Editor
Amen to your comments
Every blessing
Michael 🙏
I’m very sad to hear this news. Everyone I’ve ever known in the Dunkeld Diocese cannot speak highly enough of Bishop Robson.
He is very supportive of the old rite Mass and he will be deeply missed, I’ve no doubt about that.
I’m also sad to learn that Pope Benedict is in serious decline. I’m remembering him in my prayers today.
Margaret Mary,
I’m also very sad to learn this news. It was good just to know that one of the Scottish Bishops was generous towards the TLM and the traditional faith in general. I’ve heard this from friends in Dunkeld as well, who can’t speak highly enough of him. I’m not sure how to take this news, whether it is nothing to worry about or whether it is a sign that Scotland is going to be going even more downhill from now on, without even one solidly Catholic bishop. It will be interesting to see who is appointed in his place.
This is from the Dunkeld website and shows that this is not a sudden retirement. The Bishop is retiring on health grounds and his resignation was submitted in March 2021
https://www.dunkelddiocese.co.uk/
I agree with everyone – Bishop Robson is a very good bishop who will be missed a lot, especially by those priests and people who adhere to the TLM. I do hope the new bishop will be tolerant of that.
I can’t believe this news. We only have one solid traditional bishop and he’s retiring! God help us.
I don’t know a lot of people up there in Dunkeld but I met a couple from the diocese a few months ago and they couldn’t speak highly enough of their bishop. We’ll need to pray for a replacement who follows in his footsteps as far as the Mass goes, at least.
Michaela,
Reading the bishop’s statement on his website, the third paragraph seems to be a reminder that the priest chosen should be faithful and not modernist – note the bit about not introducing anything new. I know technically this is meaning the interim administrator but it also is a reminder of the kind of bishop who should be appointed.
Dear Friends
This announcement means that we now have two sede vecante Episcopal seats in Scotland ie. Galloway and Dunkeld.
I share previous comments and concerns regarding who will ultimately be appointed to these positions and l pray for our fellow Catholics in these Episcopal sees during this difficult time who are absent a shepherd.
Every blessing
Michael 🙏
Very sad to hear about Bishop Robson, the only bishop in Scotland who has the spirit of Our Lord, the Good Shepherd. I fear now for the Dunkeld diocese. This is a great loss to so many Scottish Catholics, especially Traditional Catholics.
I’ll be remembering Bishop Robson in my prayers, and also Cardinal Ratzinger as he nears his end.
Like everyone else here, I’m very sorry about this resignation. It tells its own story that only one bishop out of the eight in Scotland has been supporting Catholic Tradition – we should pray for a priest who shares Bishop Robson’s good grace in this matter.
I wish him well in his retirement.
Comment deleted.
Editor: I checked out those allegations myself some months ago now, and they are scurrilous lies. As WF warned us some time ago, GloriaTV is very far from being a reliable source.
Editor
Yes, sadly, Gloria TV isn’t always reliable, especially in this case as it seems to have got these allegations from a notorious blog, which is run by a homosexual, for other homosexuals, who like to gossip, spread scandal and who have an unhealthy preoccupation with the alleged homosexual activities of others – whether true or not. I really would give that blog a wide berth. And if using material from Gloria TV, try and verify any story using other sources.
I wonder if he would be willing to change his mind and become the Bishop of Galloway.
Frankier,
I don’t think anyone could save Galloway now. It’s been in meltdown for years.
This is very disappointing news indeed. I do hope the new bishop will be sympathetic to the TLM, if not enthusiastic.
I wonder who the names are, floating around, to replace Bishop Robson – does anybody know?
Lily,
I don’t know any of the clergy in Dunkeld, but I was just about to post this extract from The Democrat, an online newspaper for Dunbartonshire:
Many Scottish Catholics will see Bishop Robson’s resignation as an opportunity to scale down the number of dioceses in Scotland and reduce the number of bishops, especially at this time when the number of practising Catholics has fallen dramatically from 800,000 to a number not recently revealed by the hierarchy.
The Covid pandemic reduced the number of Mass-going Catholics in Scotland even further and there could now be a merger between the diocese of Dunkeld and the Archdiocese of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh just across the Tay, bringing with it economies of scale and access to a wider pool of priests to celebrate Mass.
https://democratonline.net/2022/12/28/resignation-and-retirement-of-bishop-stephen-robson-of-the-diocese-of-dunkeld/
This is the chickens coming home to roost, a combination of the 60 years of crisis and then the closure of churches and the decision by the bishops that God is non-essential.
Josephine,
It would be interesting to know the real source of that article. The idea that “many Scottish Catholics” will see this resignation as an opportunity for anything is utter nonsense, when “many Scottish Catholics,” judging from their servile response to scamdemic lockdowns and jabs, and the creeping socialist depravity of the SNP, not to mention the sound of crickets in response to clerical corruption, could care less.
It seems obvious that whoever wrote that has an agenda, and is hiding behind the logical fallacy called the “bandwagon.”
Comments are closed.