City to host artefacts for Pope's visit

Religious artefacts once owned by Cardinal John Henry Newman - who is soon to be beatified by the Pope - were unveiled at Sir Walter Scott's home in the Borders today before being brought to Edinburgh.

The two ornate vestments are being lent by The Abbotsford Trust to the Archdiocese of Edinburgh for Pope Benedict XVI to view during his visit to the Capital next week.

Cardinal Newman will be beatified by the Pope in Birmingham on September 19, after which the items will officially become "second class holy relics". The vestments have never previously been on public display.

Cardinal Newman was originally a priest in the Church of England, but converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845 and helped promote greater understanding of the Catholic Church and its teachings.

He visited Abbotsford in 1852 and 1872 as a guest of his friend James Robert Hope Scott who was married to Sir Walter's granddaughter Charlotte.

The vestments will be lent to the Archdiocese of Edinburgh during the Papal visit and put on show at St Bennet's, Cardinal Keith O'Brien's official residence, before being returned to Abbotsford and displayed in the chapel in which they would have been used.