Scots College in Rome to change location in the city

By Hannah Brockhaus for CNA

December 7, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Pope Francis meets with the Pontifical Scots College in 2016. Credit: Vatican News.

Rome, Italy, Dec 7, 2020 / 09:38 am (CNA).- The Scottish seminary in Rome is looking to relocate closer to the city center next year, after determining that needed updates to the current building will not be cost-effective.

The Pontifical Scots College has been at its present location, about six miles north of Rome’s city center, since 1964. The move will be only the college’s fourth since it was founded in 1600.

According to a Dec. 5 statement from the Scotland bishops’ conference, the seminary property will be put on the market early next year and “alternative suitable and affordable premises are being considered as a matter of priority.”

The current seminary campus required upgrading which the Scottish bishops determined to be beyond the resources of the conference to pay.

About 20 students live at Scots College. Because they attend classes at pontifical universities in the center of Rome, a more central location for the college will allow them to spend less time commuting back and forth.

The bishops “concluded that the sale of the building on the Via Cassia and relocation to a more central location is the best option for the formation needs of the community and for future provision,” the bishops’ statement said.

The Pontifical Scots College in Rome houses seminarians, priests doing post-graduate studies, formators, and religious sisters.

Last weekend, the college held 40 hours of Eucharistic adoration in its chapel, according to a post on Twitter.

This weekend the college spent 40 hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament during which it also had a recollection led by Fr John Carlyle, the spiritual director of the Pontifical Beda College. Fr Carlyle emphasized the need for patience in prayer and discernment.

The Pontifical Scots College was earlier this year the subject of an hour-long documentary on BBC Scotland.

When “Priest School” aired on April 19 it reached the highest audience percentage for a digital channel in Scotland.

The college was founded on Dec. 5, 1600, as a place for young Scottish men to study for the priesthood while Scotland was under anti-Catholic laws.

Scots College continued to form men to serve as priests in Scotland over the next 400 years, only closing during the French invasion of Rome in 1798 and World War II.

The seminary spent the most years in a property located on Via Felice, now called Via delle Quattro Fontane, opposite the Palazzo Barberini, Italy’s main national gallery of older paintings. Scots College was there from 1604 until 1962.

St. Pope Paul VI opened the current building in 1964.

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

Here’s what Pope Francis is doing for All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days 2024

October 30, 2024 Catholic News Agency 4
Pope Francis says Mass for All Souls’ Day at the Laurentino Cemetery outside Rome, Nov. 2, 2018. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 30, 2024 / 10:10 am (CNA).

After an October full of activity due to the Synod on Synodality, in November Pope Francis will once again mark the beginning of the month of the dead with special prayers and Masses for All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days. 

On the solemnity of All Saints on Nov. 1, Pope Francis will lead the Angelus, a traditional Marian prayer, from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square at noon Rome time, as he does on every holy day of obligation.

Before the Angelus, the pope will deliver a short reflection; often it is based on the day’s Gospel or feast. Afterward, he may greet some of the groups present in St. Peter’s Square and draw attention to current social issues affecting the world, especially war.

For All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2, Francis will continue his custom of holding a Mass in a local cemetery to pray for the dead, especially the holy souls in purgatory.

The Mass will be offered at 10 a.m. in part of the nearly 52-acre Laurentino Cemetery — Rome’s third largest. Pope Francis usually gives a brief, spontaneous homily on this occasion.

This will be the pope’s second All Souls’ Day Mass in Laurentino Cemetery. In 2018, he offered Mass in an area of the cemetery reserved for deceased children and unborn babies called the “Garden of Angels.”

Since 2016, Pope Francis has celebrated or presided at a Mass in six different cemeteries in or near Rome. For All Souls’ Day in 2023, Mass was offered at the small Rome War Cemetery, which contains 426 Commonwealth burials from the Second World War.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the pope opted to stay in Vatican City and celebrate Mass for the faithful departed in the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, which is surrounded by the Teutonic Cemetery — the burial place of people of German, Austrian, and Swiss descent, and particularly members of the Archconfraternity to the Sorrowful Mother of God of the Germans and Flemings.

In 2019, the pope celebrated Mass at the Catacombs of Priscilla, while in 2022 he privately visited the Teutonic Cemetery again but offered Mass for deceased bishops and cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica — another papal custom during the week of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days.

On Sunday, Nov. 3, Pope Francis will again lead the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, as he does every Sunday at noon.

The following morning, on Nov. 4, he will preside at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the repose of the souls of the bishops and cardinals who died during the previous year. It is the pope’s practice to always offer this Mass sometime during the first week of November.

[…]

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*