| Admin_History | Born in Glasgow, the son of a local Doctor, in 1899. Educated at St. Mungo’s and St. Aloysius’ schools in the city and at Royal Military College, Sandhurst where he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry and fought during World War One, serving mainly in Egypt. After the War, took his BL degree in 1924. Initial seminary training at St. Edmund’s, Ware followed by advanced studies at the Institute Catholique in Paris and the Appollinare in Rome. Ordained priest for Westminster Archdiocese in 1929. Main work was with the Westminster Marriage Tribunal. Appointed as Coadjutor to Bishop Toner of Dunkeld Diocese and succeeded him in 1949. Translated to the Diocese of Motherwell in 1955 and to the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1963. Received honorary Doctor of Divinity from Glasgow University in 1967. Participated in the Second Vatican Council (1962-65); Resigned in 1974 and died in London 25th March, 1976,
Despite the fact that to many people he seemed very much a London person, James Donald Scanlan was born and bred in the parish of St. Mary’s Calton in the heart of Glasgow, and there returned as Archbishop for the last decade of his episcopate. He had also been Bishop of two other Scottish Dioceses, Dunkeld and Motherwell. He was unique among the Scottish Hierarchy. He was a commissioned officer in the Highland Light Infantry during the First World War and he held both a law degree from Glasgow University and a Doctorate in Canon Law. This professional experience was put to use in his work as a member of Westminster Archdiocesan Marriage Tribunal. Various Papal honours came his way but it is safe to say that he would have been virtually unknown in Scotland until 1946.
Then, aged 47, he was appointed Coadjutor to Bishop Toner of Dunkeld. He was the direct nominee of the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Godfrey. The usual procedure, whereby the national hierarchy submits to Rome a “terna” or list of three possible candidates, seems to have been set aside. This made for a difficult start but during the nine years in Dundee which followed, he increasingly won the confidence of his priests (while maintaining a dignified distance in his personal relationship with them) and learned how to lead a community which was very much “the church of the poor”. On the other hand, he believed that it is those very same poor who derive encouragement from the splendour of the Church’s liturgy and as his Obituary in the Catholic Directory of 1977 records, his enthronement as Archbishop of Glasgow “was a ceremonial tour de force”. He also presided over the opening of many new churches in Motherwell Diocese- required by a community steadily improving its status and reputation. Always he saw it as a priority for a Bishop to make himself known to the wider community outside the Church and in this he was very successful. “In a short time, he had opened all the doors to the civic and social life of the city”- a city notoriously prone to sectarianism. Under his leadership, Catholics found a new pride in their religious inheritance.
On the other hand, he gave small attention to details of administration (relying on his subordinates to attend to these), left to his successor serious financial difficulties and does not seem to have realised the immense significance of the Second Vatican Council which would demand from Bishops unprecedented leadership skills and spiritual insights. Hindsight should not, however, blind us to his remarkable achievements. |