SCOTLAND
Edinburgh Evening News
by JOHN-PAUL HOLDEN
johnpaul.holden@edinburghnews.com
Published on the 18 February 2015
PRIESTS have attacked plans to scrap scores of parishes across the Lothians under plans that may see Catholics travelling from church to church for weekly mass.
Clergy in East and Midlothian have joined counterparts in the Scottish Borders to express the “unanimous” view that they want all parishes to remain open and have unveiled proposals to hold Sunday services “by rota”.
But they admitted the declining number of priests may mean Sunday services cannot be celebrated every week in all parishes, leaving congregation members with journeys of up to six miles to get to church.
The suggestion comes in the wake of a letter from Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh Leo Cushley warning that a drop in income, priest shortages and falling church attendances had made it necessary to consider slashing the number of parishes from 113 to around 30.
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