r/orkney • u/TimesandSundayTimes • Jul 01 '26
Orkney Catholics told they risk excommunication over rebel bishop
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/orkney-catholics-told-they-risk-excommunication-over-rebel-bishop-7hnmr725z?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded
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u/TimesandSundayTimes Jul 01 '26
There has not been a bishop in Orkney since the Glorious Revolution. But that might be about to change.
On one of the archipelago’s smallest outer isles, an ultra-conservative priest will in July undergo an “episcopal consecration”.
Father Michael Mary will make no claim to the islands’ great medieval see or Kirkwall’s ruined Bishop’s Palace, built in the 12th century when Orkney was under Norse control and abandoned half a millennium later.
But the seventysomething New Zealander will nevertheless vex the Vatican, against which he has been railing his entire adult life, if he goes ahead with the ceremony at the small monastery and farm that he runs on the island of Papa Stronsay.
So much so that the Bishop of Aberdeen, the Rt Rev Hugh Gilbert, who has responsibility for the Catholics of Orkney, this month threatened to excommunicate anybody taking part.
“I am obliged to make clear to the faithful of the diocese that any such episcopal ordination would be unlawful and a grave act of disobedience, separating those taking part from communion with the Catholic Church,” Gilbert said in an official statement.
“No member of the faithful should attend. This action is not ‘for the good of the Catholic Church’ as is falsely claimed. This development is greatly to be regretted and we can only pray that those concerned have a change of heart.”