The first Polish nuns in the history of the Scottish Catholic Church have arrived in Inverness, capital of the Highlands, in the north-east of Scotland. Sister Marzena, Sister Joanna and Sister Brygida belong to the Congregation of the Sacred Heart and have set up home in a former convent close to the church of St. Mary’s where a Polish Catholic chaplain, Father Ryszard Swyder is also working. The Polish nuns are but one further sign of the large-scale Polish immigration to the UK in recent years, which has both changed and enriched the local Catholic Church. In Inverness alone the Catholic community has tripled in number over the last three years, now totalling some 7,000 faithful. The arrival of so many Polish Catholics has made it impossible for the local Church to provide them with the necessary pastoral care. This is a problem that the Bishop of Aberdeen, the Right Rev. Peter Moran, the diocese in which Inverness is situated, has solved by asking Polish Archbishops Zycinski of Lublin and Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow to send priests willing to work abroad to Scotland. The appeal led to five Polish priests arriving in the diocese of Aberdeen and being seconded to the mission in Inverness. The nuns will help them in their pastoral tasks, by giving lessons in catechism to children and reaching out to other Highland communities with a strong Polish population such as Invergordon and Fort William. “Bishop Moran wishes the Polish community to feel itself welcomed in the Highlands and is keen there should be close collaboration between the priests and sisters of this Eastern European country and the local clergy”, said the parish priest of St.Mary’s, Father Michael Savage.
