Mario Conti

He said that the 25th anniversary of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II and the beatification of Mother Teresa had been marked with a documentary entitled Sex and the Holy City, which looked at the effectiveness of condoms in the fight against AIDS.

He also questioned the plans to broadcast a cartoon called Popetown, which satirised the Pope as a childish pensioner and he accused Newsnight Scotland of conducting a "sneering and aggressive" interview on the church's position on shared campus schools.

The National Secular Society described the claims as "grossly anti-democratic and dangerous".

A spokesperson for the BBC said: "We are always keen to ensure that all faiths are reflected across our output and are reported accurately."

Mario Joseph Conti (20 March 1934 – 8 November 2022) was a Scottish Catholic prelate who served as the Archbishop of the Metropolitan see of Glasgow, Scotland between 2002 and his retirement in 2012.

Mario Joseph Conti was born on 20 March 1934, in Elgin, Moray, son of Louis Joseph Conti and Josephine Quintilia Conti (née Panicali).

To the east of the Cathedral, thanks to a fund raising campaign among the Scots Italian community an Italian Cloister Garden has been created with a dramatic modern monument to recall the Arandora Star disaster in 1940.

Ordained to the priesthood in 1958, Conti spent most of his life in the service of the Church, being consecrated Bishop of Aberdeen in 1977 where he served until his appointment to Glasgow.

Conti died in November 2022 after what was reported as a ‘short illness’ in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

He studied for the priesthood at The Scots College, Rome and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Aberdeen in the Church of San Marcello al Corso, by Archbishop Luigi Traglia on 26 October 1958.

It followed the conviction of Sister Marie Docherty on four charges of cruelty towards girls at Nazareth House children's homes in Aberdeen and Midlothian in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Liberal Democrats MP for Gordon, Malcolm Bruce, called on the church to apologise to Sister Marie's victims, but Conti resisted any public apology.

After a period as Assistant Priest at St Mary's Cathedral in Aberdeen, Fr. Conti served as parish priest of the most northerly Roman Catholic parish in the British mainland, St Joachim's and St Anne's (Wick and Thurso respectively) in Caithness from 1962 to 1977.

He was appointed bishop of Aberdeen on 28 February 1977, succeeding Michael Foylan.

He was consecrated to that post by Cardinal Gordon Gray on 3 May 1977.

Commendatore nell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, 1981.

He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity honoris causa by the University of Aberdeen in 1989, being the first Catholic priest to be so honoured since the Reformation.

As bishop of Aberdeen he rejected claims that the Church sought to protect the interests of nuns and priests above those of children who said they had been abused.

Honorary D.D. (University of Aberdeen), 1989.

Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and a Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem Rhodes and Malta, 1991;

Principal Chaplain to the British Association of the Order of Malta, 1995-2000.

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Bishop Conti was translated to the archdiocese of Glasgow on 15 January 2002, succeeding Thomas Winning.

He took possession of the archdiocese on 22 February 2002.

Honorary Professor of Theology at the University of Aberdeen, 2002

Grande Ufficiale della Stella della Solidarieta' Italiana

In 2003, Conti publicly accused the UK Government of paving the way for human cloning.

Pope John Paul II bestowed the Pallium on Archbishop Conti on 29 June 2004, the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Archbishop Conti was a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

In 2004, he accused the BBC of "rudeness and prejudice" in its coverage of the Catholic Church and of "gross insensitivity" at the time of Pope John Paul II's silver jubilee.

Following a successful fund raising campaign Archbishop Conti oversaw the major renovation of St Andrew's Metropolitan Cathedral in Glasgow between 2009-2011.

The £5m programme was described as the most significant renovation of a Catholic church in Scotland since the reformation.

The dramatic transformation was widely acclaimed and the opening was attended by Scotland's First Minister and representatives of other Christian denominations.

The Cathedral now boasts new flooring, new heating and sound systems, new seating, new altar and ambo (designed by the Archbishop himself) and an iconic painting of St John Ogilvie by acclaimed Scottish painter Peter Howson.

Honorary D.D. (University of Glasgow), 2010

Conti was succeeded as Metropolitan Archbishop of Glasgow in September 2012, with the installation of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, who was previously the Bishop of Paisley.

Conti died on 8 November 2022, at the age of 88.

Archbishop Conti was President of the Commission for Christian Doctrine and Unity and also of the Heritage Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland.

The Archbishop was a member of the Catholic Bishops’ Joint Committee for Bio-Ethics and also of the Central Council of ACTS (Action of Churches Together in Scotland) and was a President of CTBI (Churches Together in Britain and Ireland).

Conti held the following honours: