On Sunday 7 February the Pluscarden community was honoured to host the well known theologian Professor Tracey Rowland. Among her many other appointments and accomplishments, she is Dean and Permanent Fellow of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family in Melbourne, Australia. She is also a Member of the International Theological Commission. She visited Pluscarden with Bishop Hugh, and delivered an excellent and inspiring talk in the cloister after Conventual Mass.

Her audience on this occasion included not just the monastic brethren, but also forty students from St. Andrews University who were with us for a weekend retreat. She spoke of the cultural, philosophical and political currents which helped mould the thought of St. John Paul II, and especially his Theology of the Body. She concluded by suggesting ways in which Catholics and Christians today should proclaim the truth of Christ, and defend human dignity, in an ever increasingly hostile secular environment.