Gregor McGregor (1681-1740) and the Highland problem in the Scottish Catholic Mission

Abstract

The 'chief trial' affecting the Scottish Catholic Mission in the first half of the eighteenth century was undoubtedly the accusation of Jansenist heresy which was laid against leading missioners, including bishops, by a section of the clergy.1 The factors involved in 'anti-Jansenism', arguably more significant than what it claimed to attack, have recently been clarified.2 The quarrel certainly went well beyond its ostensible focus, the Bull Unigenitus of 1713, which condemned the theology and narrow pastoral emphasis of Cornelius Jansen as reaffirmed by Quesnel. While an international view is in one sense appropriate for this issue, with French Gallicanism close to its heart, another concerns 'frontier' Catholicism,3 the implication for Scotland being that missionary priests were influenced by the Calvinism which they were trained to confront. The best specifically pastoral training was obtained in the Scots College, Paris, in comparison with the Jesuit education provided at the other 'abroad' colleges of Rome, Madrid and Douai.4 But the split was not simply a matter of Paris-trained against the rest. And although Jesuits and Benedictines lined up on the prosecution side the dispute was much more than an extension of the regularsecular issue which had been the chief trial hitherto—and which was eased when the Scottish clergy were placed under the episcopal jurisdiction of a vicar-apostolic, Thomas Nicolson. Within Scotland, the most significant factor in the quarrel over Jansenism, it has been acknowledged, was the division between Highland and Lowland Catholics.5 That is the broad theme of this paper too, but it seeks to explore the origins of that Highland/Lowland divide through the personal history of a leading actor in the drama. When the storm broke in 1731 it was Fr Gregor or Kilian McGregor, OSB, who laid charges of heresy against those who controlled the Mission. Under the pressure of events Bishop James Gordon then agreed to exact an anti-Jansenist oath from his priests, but in 1735 two leaders of the