Scottish Bishop looks to Poland

Bishop Peter Moran of Aberdeen is visiting Poland to invite bishops to establish links which could lead to Polish priests coming to work in his far-flung Scottish diocese.

"The Diocese of Aberdeen is the most northerly in Scotland," Bishop Moran told a Catholic radio station in Lublin, Radioer. "It is a diocese with a very small but scattered Catholic population.

"The percentage of Catholics is 3% of the population but with the arrival of many people from Poland the Catholic population is increasing rapidly. In one of the cities, Inverness, the Catholic community is three times what it was two years ago."

The Scottish bishop said: "I have come to Poland because these Polish Catholics need pastoral care. I also need priests for my own Catholics. I heard that there are some priests from Poland who would be very happy to come and work in Scotland for a number of years."

Bishop Moran, 70, has already met with Archbishop Jozef Miroslaw Zycinski of Lublin. He is also expecting to meet Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow.