As has become the custom over the past few years, the College hosted the Bishops of Scotland for a week in January 2016 for their annual in-service conference.
The week provided the bishops with the opportunity for a Day of Recollection (led this year by Fr Peter Muller, an American Norbertine priest based in Salamanca) and for input from various invited guests, as well as time for their business meetings. Input focussed on media, in particular the use of “new” media, social networking and multi-platform communications.
The bishops had a day’s excursion, along with the College community, to Plasencia, a town about an hour and a half south of Salamanca, where they enjoyed a guided tour of the main sites of the town and were welcomed by the Bishop of Plasencia, Don Amadeo Rodríguez Magro, at the Cathedral.
During their visit, word reached us of the death of our former rector and emeritus bishop of Argyll and the Isles, Bishop Ian Murray. Mass was offered for him here in the College at the weekend.
In addition, this year’s visit was the first to take place in the presence of seminarians – our “propaedeutic” students who had begun their journey towards priesthood only a few weeks earlier. It allowed an opportunity for the bishops to meet them, and for the seminarians to spend time with their bishops.
The picture shows the bishops outside the chapel of the monastery of the Oblatas de Cristo Sacerdote, where we have Mass each Sunday. Bishop Toal of Motherwell presided and preached. In the picture with the bishops and members of the General Secretariate are Fr Tom Kilbride, the College rector, Fr Peter Muller who led the Recollection for the bishops (far right) and Fr Edouard Onana from Cameroon, currently pursuing a doctorate in Philosophy at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, who regularly joins us for Mass (centre, behind Bishop Toal).