“I could not imagine a warmer welcome than the one I have received
here,” Bishop Hugh Gilbert told the 700 plus strong congregation at St
Mary of the Assumption Cathedral for his Episcopal ordination in
Aberdeen on Monday.
The Episcopal ordination of the former abbot of the Benedictine
monastery of Pluscarden, Elgin, took place on the Feast of the
Assumption.
During his first address to the Catholics of Aberdeen as bishop he
‘entrusted’ himself and his new ministry, and Aberdeen diocese, to Our
Lady’s ‘motherhood in the spirit,’ and said that her Assumption was a
sign of the ‘power of the risen Christ.’
Apostolic nuncio Archbishop Antonio Mennini brought the Papal mandate
and Pope Benedict XVI’s blessing to Bishop Gilbert, 59, for his
Episcopal ordination.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, president of the Bishops’ Conference of
Scotland, was the principal consecrator at the Episcopal ordination of
Bishop Gilbert.
Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, a former Bishop of
Aberdeen, and retiring Bishop Peter Moran of Aberdeen co-consecrated at
the celebrations.
The monks of Pluscarden Abbey, where Bishop Gilbert was abbott for
19 years, played an integral role in his Episcopal ordination Mass.
Bishop Gilbert was born in England and bapitised into the Church of England. He converted to Catholicism at the age of 18.