Saturday, August 20, 2011

Ordained bishop speaks of his ‘privilege and joy’

“I could not imagine a warmer welcome than the one I have received here,” Bishop Hugh Gilbert told the 700 plus strong congregation at St Mary of the Assumption Cathedral for his Episcopal ordination in Aberdeen on Monday.

The Episcopal ordination of the former abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Pluscarden, Elgin, took place on the Feast of the Assumption.

During his first address to the Catholics of Aberdeen as bishop he ‘entrusted’ himself and his new ministry, and Aberdeen diocese, to Our Lady’s ‘motherhood in the spirit,’ and said that her Assumption was a sign of the ‘power of the risen Christ.’

Apostolic nuncio Archbishop Antonio Mennini brought the Papal mandate and Pope Benedict XVI’s blessing to Bishop Gilbert, 59, for his Episcopal ordination.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, was the principal consecrator at the Episcopal ordination of Bishop Gilbert. 

Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, a former Bishop of Aberdeen, and retiring Bishop Peter Moran of Aberdeen co-consecrated at the celebrations.

The monks of Pluscarden Abbey­, where Bishop Gilbert was abbott for 19 years, played an integral role in his Episcopal ordination Mass.

Bishop Gilbert was born in England and  bapitised into the Church of England. He converted to Catholicism at the age of 18.