Campaign to declare city's first saint set for Zimbabwe

Published on Saturday 15 December 2007 08:32

THE leader of a campaign to have an Edinburgh factory worker made a saint has pledged to take his cause to Zimbabwe.

Fr Richard Reid, of St Patrick's RC Church on the Cowgate, will be travelling to the troubled African nation in February to run a priest training centre.

The appointment of 35-year-old Fr Reid, who had just begun studying for a doctorate in Belgium, has come as a huge shock to the tight-knit community at St Patrick's.

But Fr Reid – who oversaw the exhumation and reburial of Margaret Sinclair, who is set to become Edinburgh's first saint, in the church grounds and also produced a film about her life – said he was excited by the challenge.

Fr Reid last visited the Redemptorist Order Mission in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, in August 2006, although the political situation in the country has since become increasingly unstable under Robert Mugabe's brutal regime.

Fr Reid said: "I have very mixed emotions. I'm thrilled to have a new challenge, but also a bit daunted. It's an amazing place, with a real vibrancy. It's a young church, but it has many problems and political challenges, which are always there in people's lives."

He said he intended to teach people about Ms Sinclair, a Cowgate-born factory worker, who is renowned for her charitable work with the poor in Edinburgh's slums.

She died in 1925, and has already been given Venerable status by the Catholic Church – a major step on the way to sainthood.

Fr Reid said: "I'll be spreading the devotion to Margaret Sinclair and will make sure people are praying to her. In the townships you get 3000 people at a time at mass, so there will be plenty of opportunity to let people know about her.

"I'll show the film about her life, and I carry a big picture of her with me, which I'll put up in one of the community rooms. It's a wonderful way to keep up the links with Edinburgh and the people of St Pat's, who have been so generous to the mission in Zimbabwe."

Fr Ed Hone of St Patrick's said Fr Reid's appointment had been a complete surprise.

"Richard had said before that he would drop everything to go, if he was ever needed. He was approached and said yes straight away.

"He has been training priests for seven years very successfully, and his move will be announced in St Patrick's this weekend."

Having visited Zimbabwe himself, Fr Hone admitted that he was worried about his long-time colleague going to live in the African country, which suffers from political strife and repression.

"It's so insecure and volatile out there. Mugabe very quickly points the finger at white Europeans for anything going wrong. Richard knows that and is still prepared to go. The people of St Patrick's will be very excited and anxious for him."

Fr Reid was at St Patrick's for more than six years, until he started a three-year course in the spirituality and psychology of vocation at the Catholic University of Louvain in September this year.