Page 11 - 2024-12-OrdScotReview

News from The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in Scotland Page 11

Fr Alexander ... a forgotten by history

R ALEXANDER hold of the aptly named ship HMS
F FCAMERON was a priest Furnace.
who ministered to the Jacobites The infernally inhumane
during the ‘45 Rising. Born in conditions in which the prisoners
1701, he was a convert to the were kept had a fatal impact on
Faith who served the exiled Fr Alexander’s health. He was
Stuart King at his court in Rome too ill to suffer the fate of many of
and who later became a Jesuit the other prisoners who would be
priest and returned to Scotland sold as slaves to plantation owners
to minister to the illegal and in the British West Indies. He
underground Catholic Church in died in the bowels of the Furnace
his native land. For four years he on 19th October 1746, and his
served as a “heather priest” in the body was subsequently buried in
Highlands, risking arrest and the the nearest cemetery, which was
harshest of weather conditions to in the equally aptly named town
provide spiritual succour and the of Gravesend in Kent, the same
sacraments to his outlawed flock.
graveyard, coincidentally, in
In 1745, after Prince Charles Prayer for the Canonisation which Pocahontas is buried.
Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince of Fr Alexander Cameron When news of Fr
Charlie, arrived in Scotland, O God, who dost will that every nation and people be Alexander’s death reached
raising his father’s standard as converted unto Thee, and who gave us Father Alexander so that his fellow Jesuit, Fr
the true King, Fr Alexander Scotland yet again may love the Faith entire and true. Crookshank, the latter
May his example of humble ministry in the midst of greater
volunteered to serve as a danger stir up in us a zeal for the Gospel. May his suffering and wrote to the General of the
chaplain to the Jacobite Army, death be an example of witness to the one true faith, so that in Society of Jesus, Fr Franz
which was under the command imitating his courage, we might surrender to the Divine Will. Retz, that “we have lost
of his elder brother, Donald Through his intercession, hear our petitions for the that fine missionary and
Cameron of Lochiel. As for conversion of Scotland and for the conversion of our own religious, Fr Alex Cameron,
the justice of the Jacobite hearts, so that, brought to closer unity with Thee, we may more who was captured in June
cause, apart from its support faithfully contemplate the truth and show forth the fruits of last and put in chains in
for the legitimate king and that contemplation. a man-of-war where he
Heavenly Father, grant that Father Alexander may be
its opposition to the usurper deemed worthy of canonisation, so that we may merit from his bore all kinds of insults and
on the throne in England, the intercessions, for the glory of Thy Church, the praise the Blessed cruelty with unconquerable
rising of 1745 was, according Virgin Mary, and evangelisation of our nation. Amen. patience and Christian
to Scottish historian and Fr Alexander Cameron fortitude and where he
convert John Lorne Campbell Priest and Missionary 1701-1746 contracted a deadly disease.”
(as quoted in Ray Perman, The Pray for us
Man Who Gave Away His Island: A fragment of the tartan
A Life of John Lorne Campbell), “the natural reaction chasuble worn by Fr Alexander as he offered
of the Jacobite clans and their sympathisers in Mass on the night before the Battle of Culloden
the Highlands against what had been, since the is preserved as a relic by the Roman Catholic
coming of William of Orange in 1690, a calculated Diocese of Argyll and the Isles. It is displayed
genocidal campaign against the religion of many and can be venerated at the Clan Cameron
and the language of all Highlanders.” Museum at Achnacarry Castle in Lochaber.

On the eve of the Battle of Culloden, as on The natural cup-stone used by Fr Alexander and
the eve of earlier battles, Fr Alexander offered two other fellow Jesuit outlaws in secret baptisms
the Tridentine Mass for the Catholics of his in a cave at Glen Cannich is preserved as a relic
regiment. The following day’s battle resulted in at St Mary and St Bean’s Catholic Church at
the final defeat and destruction of the Jacobite Marydale, near the site of the cave itself.
Army and the cause for which it fought. Fr The above is taken from an article by Joseph Pearce
Alexander was hunted down and imprisoned published on crisismagazine.com in May 2024
with hundreds of other Jacobites in the cramped