The Pontifical Scots College: A Legacy of Faith and Education in Rome
The Pontifical Scots College in Rome stands as a testament to the enduring relationship between Scotland and the Catholic Church. Founded with the aim of training priests for service in Scotland, the college has played a pivotal role in preserving and promoting the Catholic faith in a country that underwent significant religious upheaval. Its history is marked by periods of growth, challenges, and adaptation, reflecting the broader historical and political forces at play in both Scotland and Europe.
Foundation and Early Years (1600-1707)
The seeds of the Scots College were sown in the late 16th century, a time when the Catholic Church in Scotland was facing immense pressure following the Scottish Reformation. Recognizing the need to educate and train priests to serve the Catholic population in Scotland, Clement VIII gave Scotland its college at Rome. The formal establishment of the Pontifical Scots College can be traced back to 5 December 1600, when Pope Clement VIII issued the Bull of foundation. This act conferred upon the college all the privileges already enjoyed by the Greek, German, and English colleges. To ensure the college's financial stability, the Pope bestowed various endowments, including the revenue of an abbey in the Neapolitan kingdom and a monthly pension from the revenues of the Dataria. This financial support was crucial for the college's initial operations and its ability to attract students.
The first students arrived in 1602, initially residing in the Via Tritone. However, the location proved unsuitable, and in 1604, the college moved to its more permanent and "admirable position" in Via Quattro Fontane, close to the Quirinal Palace. The original buildings lacked architectural distinction, but they provided a base for the college to grow and develop.
The early administration of the college saw Mgr. Paolini as the first superior. In 1614, the Jesuits assumed responsibility for the college, with Father Anderson, nephew of Mary Stuart's ally, Bishop of Ross, Leslie, becoming the first Jesuit rector. Father Anderson is credited with establishing the rules and constitutions that guided the college's operations.
During this period, the college faced challenges related to students joining the Society of Jesus, raising concerns among authorities in Scotland about the vocations of the young men. The stringent application of the Mission Oath prescribed by Alexander VII did not entirely resolve these tensions.
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Development and Challenges (1707-1820)
The 18th century brought new challenges and changes to the Scots College. After the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1773, the bishops in Scotland were invited to nominate a secular priest to lead the college. Their initial refusal, due to a perceived lack of suitable candidates, proved to be a misstep. Under the administration of Italian secular priests, the college experienced a decline in finances, discipline, studies, piety, and vocations.
The occupation of Rome by French Revolutionary soldiers in 1798 forced the closure of the college, sending the remaining students back to Scotland. While this was undoubtedly a setback, it also presented an opportunity for reflection and reform.
19th Century Rebuilding
Gradually the college has bettered its status, and now with thirty-eight students to represent the half million of Scots Catholics it is proportionately the best attended of the colleges of Rome. The students have always frequented the Gregorian University. Among the benefactors of the college are Father William Thompson, the first Marchioness of Huntly, Cardinals Spinelli and Sacripanti, Henry Cardinal Duke of York, Mgr. Lennon, and Mgr. Taggart.
In 1861, funds given in compensation for the loss of the Scots Monastery in Ratisbon made possible an entire reconstruction of the college itself. Demolition of the buildings began in 1864, and the new building was completed in 1869 under the direction of Luigi Poletti. Busts of notable Scottish Catholics can still be seen on the façade of the building, including the last of the Stuarts, Henry Cardinal Duke of York.
20th and 21st Centuries: Adaptation and Relocation
The first half of the 20th century saw two Rectors appointed directly to the episcopate; Robert Fraser, who had seen the institution through its tercentenary celebrations, and Donald Mackintosh who oversaw the years during the First World War. Mackintosh was succeeded as Rector by his Vice-rector, Father William Clapperton, who was to become another long term Rector and significant figure in the college's history. In the early years of his rector-ship he saw to the reconstruction of the college villa at Marino as well as seeking the addition of a spiritual director to the staff, and saw the rise of Benito Mussolini in Italy - under whom the college building on the Via Quattro Fontane was threatened by radical plans for the city.
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When Italy entered the Second World War, Clapperton decided that staff and students should return home. Seminarians studying philosophy were sent to Blairs College while those in theology were transferred to St Peter's College, Bearsden. Clapperton was kept up to date with college affairs from his temporary posting in Banff while an administrator managed it.
In 1959, the Scottish Bishops decided to build a new college on the outskirts of the city and a location was chosen on the Via Cassia some 4 miles from the city centre. Clapperton wished not to oversee the move, given his age and long tenure, and was released from his office in 1960. He was named a Canon of St John Lateran and remained in Rome until his death in 1969.
In 1962, the old college was vacated and the seminarians spent the interim years at the college villa in Marino. The chapel of the new college was designed in the shape of an irregular heptagon complete with high altar, an altar to Saint Andrew, Lady altar, choir stalls and pipe organ. Beneath the chapel there is a crypt, the main body of which was dedicated to Saint Margaret, with altarpiece by Arthur Fleischmann. In addition, there were altars of Saint Patrick, Saint Ninian and Saint Columba, each with their own mosaics. Fixed to the walls of the crypt were the original tombstones of James Francis Edward Stuart, Charles Edward Stuart and Henry Benedict Stuart. The stairways around the chapel and crypt were decorated with twenty stained glass windows created by Giovanni D'Aloisio depicting scenes from the history of the Church in Scotland. The subjects of these windows were suggested by Mgr. David McRoberts while Mgr. Charles Burns acted as historical adviser to the artists.
Seminarians at the Pontifical Scots College in Rome spend their first two years studying Philosophy at the Angelicum. After completion of Philosophy, and depending on their fluency in Italian, they take up the study of theology either at the Pontifical Gregorian University or the Angelicum, where theology is also offered in English.
On 14 April 2016, the community of the Scots College were granted a private audience with Pope Francis at the Apostolic Palace to mark the 400th anniversary of its becoming a seminary. In 2017, seminarians from the college were invited to serve at the Easter Vigil at St. James.
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Notable Figures and Contributions
Throughout its history, the Scots College has been associated with numerous individuals who have made significant contributions to the Church and society.
A large proportion of the bishops who have ruled the Church in Scotland - today five out of six-have been Roman students, and all along a succession of pious, learned, and devoted missionaries from Rome has done much to keep alive and extend the Faith. Bishop Hay, whose centenary has been kept this year with special celebrations at Fort Augustus and Edinburgh, by his doctrinal and devotional works has laid the English-speaking Catholic world under a deep debt. Archbishop William Smith's work on the Pentateuch attracted much attention more than forty years ago among Biblical scholars as an answer to Colenso, and was pronounced by so great an authority as Cornely as the best work on the subject from any Catholic writer.
The careers of some of the early students at the college demonstrate the opportunities available to educated Scottish Catholics on the continent in the 17th century. Former students Robert Phillip, later joined the French Oratory, and William Thomson, later a Franciscan, were confessors to Henrietta Maria of France. Another George Strachan of the Mearns became a Humanist scholar, Orientalist and traveller. Daniel Colville became a notable linguist and librarian at El Escorial. George Conn, who arrived in 1619 and left in the same year, later became a Franciscan, canon of San Lorenzo in Damaso, secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini and honorary chamberlain of Pope Urban VIII. Conn also acted as papal agent at the court of Queen Henrietta Maria. William Ballantine, a student from 1641 to 1646, was named the first Prefect of the Scottish Mission in 1653 and was imprisoned in London for two years by order of Oliver Cromwell. Ballantine was later succeeded by another former student of the college, Alexander Dunbar Winchester.
During the fabricated Popish Plot, which gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland, Alexander Lumsden, a former student of the college and Dominican Friar, was condemned to death in London. He was later acquitted on the grounds of his nationality and could not be said to have "acted as a priest in England" within the meaning of the Jesuits, etc. Charles Erskine was educated at the college under the protection of Henry Benedict Stuart from 1748 until 1753. Erskine became a papal diplomat and was named Cardinal in 1801.
Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913), better known as Baron Corvo; a writer, artist, photographer and eccentric, was expelled from the college without receiving ordination. Canon John Gray (1866-1934), English poet and founding parish priest of St Peter's Morningside Edinburgh, studied at the college from 1898 until 1901. Adrian Fortescue (1874-1923), priest and polymath, studied at the college from 1891 until 1894. George Thompson (1928-2016) entered the college in the 1950s and left without completing his studies. He later became a teacher and then a Scottish National Party politician and Member of Parliament. Later he resumed studies for the priesthood at St John's Seminary, Wonersh and was ordained in 1989.
The College's Properties
The Scots College has had its country house, where the students spend the summer recess, for nearly three centuries near Grottaferrata on the Alban Hills, in the midst of vineyards where the country is as health-giving and picturesque as it is full of legendary, historical, and antiquarian interest.
Attached to the college is an elegant little church built in 1645, and dedicated to St. Andrew, Patron of Scotland.
Sadly the building was not very well maintained and by 1960 it was falling apart. It was decided to sell the old college buildings in the Via delle Quattro Fontane and move to a larger site out the middle of nowhere in the Via Cassia.
Administration and Governance
The Scots College, like other pontifical colleges, is immediately subject to the Holy See, which now exercises its jurisdiction partly by a cardinal protector, and partly by the Sacred Consistorial Congregation. Previous to 1908 the papal authority was exercised through the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, and the students were ordained with dimissorial letters issued by the cardinal protector.
The Scots College in Paris
The Scots College (Latin: Collegium Scoticum; French: Collège des Écossais) was a college of the University of Paris, France, founded by an act of the Parliament of Paris on 8 July 1333. The act was a ratification of an event that had already taken place, the founding of the Collegium Scoticum, one of a number of national colleges into which the university was divided. The college accepted both lay and clerical students. In 1707, the minimum age for admission was fixed at fifteen, but that was often ignored.
When the Roman Catholic Church was disestablished in Scotland, the Scots College became a centre for Catholic Scots abroad and a political centre for persons who hoped to reconvert Scotland. Mary, Queen of Scots, contributed to it even from prison. Meanwhile, the college buildings at Rue des Fosses de S. James Beaton bequeathed his property, including the archives of the Diocese of Glasgow, and a great mass of important correspondence, to the Scots College.
Efforts to reconvert Scotland militarily and politically failed. Neither James VI & I nor his son Charles I were inclined to change religions, but the restored monarch, Charles II, converted on his deathbed and his successor, his brother, James II, was a Catholic. The Protestant English found it necessary to depose him in favour of his Protestant daughter, Queen Mary II, and the college once more became a centre for exiled Scottish Catholics.
"When James II. came to France he interested himself in the college, and persuaded Louis XIV., in 1688, to grant a new patent. … During the French Revolution the people of Paris paid little respect to either Catholicism or Protestantism. Social transformation had changed paradigms entirely. The building was taken for use as a prison during the Reign of Terror. Among its famous prisoners, Louis de Saint-Just was briefly imprisoned here during the revolt of Thermidor. One of its chapels had a bronze urn containing the brain of King James VII. After he died of a brain hemorrhage on 16 September 1701 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye his body was laid in a coffin at the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques.
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