{"id":655,"date":"2021-04-08T09:06:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T09:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/?p=655"},"modified":"2021-04-08T09:07:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T09:07:28","slug":"scottish-parliament-elections-bishops-pastoral-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/?p=655","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Parliament Elections: Bishops&#8217; Pastoral Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Read the Bishops\u2019 Pastoral Letter for the forthcoming Scottish Parliament Election, to be held on 6<sup>th<\/sup> May. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Bishops&#8217; Conference of Scotland, through the Catholic Parliamentary Office, has distributed a Pastoral Letter addressed to Scottish Catholics, which should be made available to them before the Scottish Parliament Election on Thursday 6<sup>th<\/sup> May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/BCOS-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-658\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/BCOS-2.png 300w, https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/BCOS-2-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Scotland&#8217;s 7 bishops (and the Administrator of the Archdiocese of Glasgow) explain that &#8220;this election presents us with an opportunity to play our part in putting human life and the inviolable dignity of the human person at the centre of Scotland\u2019s political discourse.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They go on to say that Catholics have a duty &#8220;to share the Gospel and to help form the public conscience on key moral issues,&#8221; some of which the bishops outline in the letter. They are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Beginning and end of life issues<\/li><li>Family and Work issues<\/li><li>Poverty, Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery<\/li><li>Environmental issues<\/li><li>Free speech, free expression, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion<\/li><li>Catholic education<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The bishops urge Catholics to make use of a resource on the Catholic Parliamentary Office website &#8220;to help you in your consideration of election issues and to use the tools available to question candidates.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The website resource, referred to in the letter, should be live in time for the weekend and can be accessed via this link: <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/rcpolitics.org\/scottish-parliament-election-2021\/?fbclid=IwAR0rjA4VFNsNmsse90ZQ6USdE7EkXpxFa2Xl8sU-6IHjknTkqfhnswQTxn4\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/rcpolitics.org\/scottish-parliament-election-2021\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To read the Pastoral Letter, download it here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Scottish-Parliament-Election-2021-Pastoral-Letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Scottish Parliament Election 2021 Pastoral Letter<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Scottish-Parliament-Election-2021-Pastoral-Letter.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button\" download>Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Read the Bishops\u2019 Pastoral Letter for the forthcoming Scottish Parliament Election, to be held on 6th May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmirinscathedral.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}