Angus MacDonald (1844–1900) was a Scottish Roman Catholic priest, who later served as the first Bishop of Argyll and the Isles from 1878 to 1892 and as the third Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh from 1892 to 1900.

Early life

Born in

Borrodale Borrodale ( gd, Borodail) is small hamlet on the Isle of Skye, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Borrodale is part of Glendale and the Glendale Estate, in the parish of Duirinish. Borrodale is where the local primary school for Glendale was ...

on the

Isle of Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated ...

on 18 September 1844, he was the third son of Angus MacDonald and Mary MacDonald (née Watson). His elder brother was Hugh MacDonald, Bishop of Aberdeen. Angus MacDonald was educated at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw. Afterwards, he graduated from the University of London with a Bachelor of Arts.

Priestly career

After his ordination to the priesthood on 7 July 1872, he was first stationed at St Patrick's Church, Anderston, Glasgow, then sent to Arisaig, Inverness-shire to help the aged Father William Mackintosh, at whose death he took charge of that parish. There he laboured among the people he had known from childhood, his knowledge of Gaelic enabling him to instruct and help those and there were a great many of them who neither understood nor spoke English.

Episcopal career

Just after the Scottish Hierarchy was restored on 15 March 1878, he was appointed the first bishop of the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles by the Holy See on 22 March 1878. He was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

to the episcopate by Archbishop

Charles Petre Eyre Charles Petre Eyre (1817–1902) was a Roman Catholic clergyman who was appointed the first Roman Catholic archbishop of Glasgow since the Scottish Reformation. He served as archbishop from 1878 to 1902. Family Born at Askham Bryan Hall, Askham ...

of Glasgow on 23 May 1878, with Bishop James Chadwick of Hexham & Newcastle and Bishop John MacDonald of Aberdeen serving as co- consecrators. He took up his residence at

St Columba's Cathedral The Cathedral Church of St Columba in Oban is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Argyll and the Isles and mother church of the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles. The cathedral is located on the sea front at the northern end of Oban. Hist ...

Oban Oban ( ; ' in Scottish Gaelic meaning ''The Little Bay'') is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William. During the tourist season, th ...

, where he devoted himself to rebuilding the Catholic Church after centuries of

religious persecution Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religion, religious beliefs or affiliations or their irreligion, lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within soc ...

throughout his new and scattered diocese, which he regularly visited in all seasons and in all kinds of weather. At the time, Oban was overwhelmingly Gaelic-speaking, but religiously Presbyterian and

Episcopalian Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...

. Catholics were a tiny minority and

anti-Catholicism Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...

was so intense that Bishop MacDonald is said to have needed an armed bodyguard to safely stroll around Oban during his first years there. The Diocesan See, however, had been placed in Oban anyway, because Oban was, according to the 1882 '' Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland'', "the capital of the West Highlands and the

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City; ...

of the Hebrides." He became a familiar sight on the Highland

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

s, often clad in oilskin and sou'wester. He built churches and schools, and, with his priests, worked incessantly for the glory of God and the increase of the religion to which he and his

ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom ...

s had always adhered. While rebuilding churches where excessive rents, religious discrimination, political bossism, and the

Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( gd, Fuadaichean nan Gàidheal , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulte ...

by the

Anglo-Scottish Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the Angles, England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people o ...

landowning gentry had already made the See of Argyll and the Isles, "the most impoverished Diocese in Britain", Bishop MacDonald also cared very deeply, as he once wrote, about working, "to obtain redress for the people", during the same era as the Highland Land League agitation. In May 1883, Bishop MacDonald wrote a letter to the Crofter's Commission from the Oban Rectory he shared with the famous Scottish Gaelic poet Fr.

Allan MacDonald Allan Macdonald (November 21, 1794 White Plains, Westchester County, New York – January 1862) was an American politician from New York. Life He was the son of Dr. Archibald Macdonald (d. 1813), a native of Scotland. Allan Macdonald was Postm ...

, "I refer to the way in which the Catholics (i.e. the great bulk of the population) of South Uist and Barra have been dealt with in educational matters, in being refused Catholic teachers in schools attended almost exclusively by Catholic children... I believe that a statement of this case will show the existence of a widespread evil, in the dependent and downgrading position in which such tenants are apt to be placed - with no security of tenure, no guarantee against removal at will, and with the fear constantly hanging over them, that if they assert their rights they may be made to suffer for it, without having power to obtain redress... In other Catholic districts on the mainland, Catholics had their feeling invariably respected by choolboards composed mainly of non-Catholic members. Here n the Islands where they could have by their votes secured a majority of seats and then looked after their own interests, they were deterred by fear from exercising that right." According to Roger Hutchinson, the Bishop's choice to assign Gaelic-speaking priests from the Scottish mainland to parishes in the Hebrides was accordingly no accident. About that time, when the Bishop and his priests were the leaders of

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

, rent strikes, and other acts of resistance to the

landlords, Fr. Michael MacDonald has since commented, "I think that one of the things that may have influenced the boldness of the priests at that time was simply that they had no relations on the islands who could have been got at by the estate Factor or others." Roger Hutchinson further writes that the hostility of Bishop MacDonald and his priests to the absolute power granted to the landlords under Scots property law at the time, which Hutchinson inaccurately labels as Liberation Theology rather than Distributism, was fueled by a deep sense of outrage over the decimation of the Catholic population of the Scottish Gaeldom by the

. A further influence was the knowledge that the roots of the Clearances lay in the Classical Liberalism preached in

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——— ...

's '' The Wealth of Nations'' during the

Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century ...

and in that ideology's hostility to, "bigotry and superstition"; which were, in 18th- and 19th-century Scotland, routinely used as shorthand for

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

. After 14 years as Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, he was translated to the Metropolitan see of St Andrews and Edinburgh on 15 July 1892. His replacement as Bishop of Argyle and the Isles was George Smith. John Lorne Campbell, however, has subtly criticized the Vatican's decision to appoint Bishop Smith to an overwhelmingly Gaelic-speaking Diocese. This is because Bishop Smith, a native of

Banffshire Banffshire ; sco, Coontie o Banffshire; gd, Siorrachd Bhanbh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. The county town is Banff, although the largest settlement is Buckie to the west. It borders the Moray ...

, was "a successor who, although a man of holy personality, knew no Gaelic."John Lorne Campbell's Biography of Fr. Allan MacDonald
/ref> As Archbishop and Primate of Scotland, MacDonald continued with the same zeal, humility, gentleness, tact, and firm attention to everything in his new duties as he had had under his old charge. He died in office on 29 April 1900, aged 55.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonald, Angus 1844 births 1900 deaths 19th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Scotland 19th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Scotland 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Scotland Alumni of the University of London Distributism History of human rights History of the Scottish Highlands Land reform in Scotland Resistance to the Highland Clearances Roman Catholic archbishops of St Andrews and Edinburgh Roman Catholic bishops of Argyll and the Isles Scottish human rights activists