Pope appoints ‘extra’ bishop to assist Cardinal O’Brien

An EXTRA bishop has been appointed to help run the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

The Very Reverend Monsignor Stephen Robson was made auxiliary bishop to the archdiocese by Pope Benedict XVI yesterday. There has not been an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese since 1996.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said Cardinal Keith O’Brien needs assistance because of his national and international responsibilities.

Monsignor Robson said he felt “great peace and joy” alongside a “great sense of unworthiness” at his appointment.

He completed his ecclesiastical studies at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange, in the Borders, and later studied at the Pontifical Scottish College in Rome.

Ordained as a priest in 1979 for the archdiocese of Edinburgh, he went on to act as parochial vicar at St Mary’s, Kirkcaldy, and as a pastor at Our Lady and St Margaret’s in Duns, and St John Vianney’s in Edinburgh.

He was also a tutor at Blairs College and worked in the Department for Religious Education in Edinburgh.

From 1998 to 2006 he was spiritual director of the Pontifical Scottish Seminary in Rome.

On returning to Scotland he became chancellor of the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, and pastor of the united parishes of Our Lady’s in North Berwick and Dunbar.