On behalf of everyone in the Diocese of Motherwell I express our shock and sadness on the sudden
death of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia. We offer the support of our prayers to his family and the
community of the Archdiocese of Glasgow, and join with them in commending his soul to the tender
mercy of our Loving Father through the saving power of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the years I have shared with him in the episcopal ministry I have heard him repeatedly express his
steadfast belief in Christ and the need for Him to be at the heart of all we say and do in the Church,
his Body. His faith was straight-forward and re-assuring, and from that came the wise counsel which
he offered in the deliberations about and the decisions taken in so many areas of the Church’s
Mission in Glasgow Archdiocese and In the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland. As his brother bishops
we will miss him greatly, and that sense of loss is shared with so many others.
It is good to remember with gratitude his priestly minister before he became a Bishop – in the
parishes he served in and in the seminaries he taught and rectored in. Those who attended his
classes remember him as a gifted lecturer, and in later years he looked back with some nostalgia to
these times of theological investigation and teaching as a time of much fulfilment and contentment.
He loved his native city, and the family and community he grew up in. It was hard to leave his
parents and younger brothers and sisters to go to Junior Seminary to train for the priesthood, but it
must have been a great joy for the family that both he and his brother Gerry were ordained as
priests. We offer our sympathy now to all of them as they grieve the loss of their brother Philip, and
pray with them that he will be united with their beloved parents and their recently deceased sister
in Paradise, in the blessed company of Our Lady, St Mungo, and all the Saints.
May his soul , and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.
+Joseph Toal
Bishop of Motherwell
