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The community at St Patrick’s, Cowgate, in Edinburgh has now become an Oratory-in-formation. This is the next step in the establishment of an Oratory of St Philip Neri. Please keep them in your prayers!
From the website of the Edinburgh Oratory-in-formation:
March 30, 2025
By Divine Providence God has led us to the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh as a place to establish the Oratory of St Philip Neri, by being given the care of Saint Patrick’s; to make here our Domus (home) with the Oratorian vocation, apostolate, and rule of life.
Oratorians are not members of a Religious Order with vows; where they live is not a monastery: the Home of an Oratory is important as the Fathers live as a family, in one permanent place, being governed by fraternal charity. Together as a community, yet with space for private prayer and penance, both elements help aid the zeal necessary for the apostolate here in the parish, and beyond.
The House in Edinburgh helps us to be both eremitic and missionary: as Rome was simultaneously St Philip’s desert and his India. We are very grateful to Archbishop Leo Cushley for his invitation to come to the Archdiocese; for warmly welcoming and encouraging us throughout.
On the 25th of March 2025, the Feast of the Annunciation, by formal Decree we were established as a Community, granted the status and title of Oratory in Formation by the Procurator General in Rome. He has appointed Father Ninian Doohan as the Moderator (Superior) of the Oratory-in-Formation, and Father Richard Duffield Cong. Orat., the Provost of the York Oratory, as the Delegate of the Procurator General, who liaises between Edinburgh and Rome, directing the ongoing formation of the House, until – God willing – it is erected as a Pontifical Oratory (the definitive foundation of an independent permanent Community created by the Pope). This process can last the good part of a decade, so we are just at the beginning. Fr Duffield has been with us from the start, from the first letter he received from us in March 2021; though he had prayed for a long time before for a Scottish Project.
St Philip Neri was the founder of the Congregation from which the Oratory is both established and constituted, and while it was not in his mind to form a federation of Congregations outside Rome, the initiative of priests who had come into contact with the Roman Oratory and were fascinated by the new method of evangelization, fanned the flame of apostolic desire in Father Philip to see the Oratory spread, and with it the Congregation that was to serve it.
St John Henry Cardinal Newman brought the Oratory to the English-speaking world with his premier foundation in Birmingham, followed soon thereafter with London. He had desires for further foundations, and Edinburgh was very much on his mind and visits: we hope and pray to bring his desire to fulfilment.
Read the official announcement (with translation) here.
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