Rest in peace Archbishop Tartaglia

Everyone here at SCIAF was shocked and deeply saddened by the unexpected death of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia early today.

His loss, on the feast of St Mungo, Glasgow’s patron, will be keenly felt by all of us at SCIAF and many across Glasgow and beyond. Please pray for the repose of his soul. May he rest in peace.

He was passionate about helping the least fortunate and actively supported SCIAF’s work on behalf of the Church in Scotland. He served on our board from 2012-2017 and was always generous with his time. Just last November he offered our annual remembrance mass for supporters and friends of SCIAF who had died in the last year. In his homily he spoke powerfully about his affection for SCIAF and our mission,

"The mission of SCIAF, born from and sustained by the love of Jesus Christ, is to seek to lift people across the world out of poverty and to help them to achieve the change that is necessary for families, communities and nations to live and to prosper according to their human dignity, in peace and in justice.

"This is the vision that unites the Catholic community of Scotland in its ownership, in its affection and in its support for “our” SCIAF, and that attracts many other supporters to SCIAF’s good and honourable causes.

"This is the vision that energised the people whose lives we remember at this Mass and for whose souls we pray this evening to commit themselves to support the mission of SCIAF. Because of this pandemic and after it, the mission of SCIAF will be all the more needed across the world."

At the time, many of us here at SCIAF talked about how moved and inspired we were by those words, and at his passing we feel that even more deeply. As we mourn his loss, we treasure these memories.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.