 stones and the first item of business this after noon is time for reflection and our time for reflection leader today is Father Vincent Lockhart St Monica's Parish Cotebridge Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament good afternoon today marks the 400th anniversary of the death of St John Ogilvy at Glasgow Cross and important day in the life of the Catholic community John Ogilvy was born near Keith and Bamsher and raised in the Calvinist tradition. At the age of 17, he converted to the Roman Catholic faith while studying in Belgium. He then entered the society of Jesus, the Jesuits, and was ordained a priest of that order in Paris in 1610. After his repeated appeals to be sent to minister to the few remaining Catholics in his native country, Ogilvy arrived in Scotland in November 1613. However, within a year, much of it spent on the run. He was captured and imprisoned and tortured in Paisley jail. Although Ogilvy recognised the king's temporal authority, he refused to accept his jurisdiction in spiritual matters, and for this he was tried for treason and executed on March 10, 1615. St John Ogilvy was officially proclaimed a saint of the Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI in 1976. Some 87 years prior to Ogilvy's disembowling and hanging at Glasgow Cross, the Scottish Protestant reformer, Patrick Hamilton, was burnt at the stake as a heretic by the Catholic establishment outside St Saboteurs Chapel in St Andrews. Some years later, two other Protestant reformers, Walter Mill and George Wishart, met with the same faith. Hanging, disembowling and burning at the stake are no longer used against political opponents in Scotland, as far as I'm aware. We have come a long way from Glasgow Cross and North Street in St Andrews in the past 400 years. As a nation, we still owe much to the example of these Catholic and Protestant martyrs. They were men of principle who were not swayed by popular opinion and who valued integrity over personal comfort and safety. Rather than seeing our past crimes against one another as an obstacle, our acknowledgement of them can also make us humble and more open to tolerance and dialogue. Last month saw the warm and cordial meeting of the right reverend John Charmers, moderator of the Church of Scotland and his holiness Pope Francis in the Vatican. In his speech, Pope Francis said, we are pilgrims and we journey alongside one another. Let us be grateful for one another and for the fact that we now live and journey together in peace. Thank you.