Fifty per cent drop in number of priests ordained in Scotland

A FIFTY per cent fall in the number of priests ordained in Scotland and the transfer of one of the country's two senior seminaries were revealed on Sunday by Archbishop Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh.
With the controversy over the closure of the junior seminary at Blairs scarcely passed, the decision to close St Andrew's College, Drygrange, founded in 1953, is bound to cause concern.
However, the archbishop announced that the seminary will be rehoused in Edinburgh, at a new complex to be called Gillis College after a former bishop.
The cost of the transfer and the setting up of the new centre at Gillis will be funded by the sale of Drygrange.
Archbishop O'Brien stressed that the decision did not preclude the establishment of a National Seminary for the whole of Scotland. "I intend to continue to work in close collaboration with Archbishop Thomas Winning towards the establishment of a National Seminary".
Edinburgh and Aberdeen dioceses are the only ones not to use the inter-diocesan seminary in Glasgow at Chester's College, set up on a site purchased last year from Glasgow University at the cost of some £500,000.