Gray, Gordon Joseph Cardinal

▪ 1994

      Scottish prelate (b. Aug. 10, 1910, Leith, near Edinburgh, Scotland—d. July 19, 1993, Edinburgh), as spiritual leader of some 800,000 Roman Catholics in Scotland from 1969, was the first resident Scottish cardinal since the Reformation and the first cardinal ever to address the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland (1977). After being ordained in 1935, Gray served as a parish priest in Hawick (1941-47) and as rector of the national junior seminary in Aberdeen (1947-51). He was made archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in 1951 and was elevated to cardinal in 1969. Although he endorsed conservative theology, Gray was actively involved in church reform and the ecumenical movement that came out of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). He was chairman of the International Commission for English in the Liturgy, which translated the Latin liturgy into English; coauthor of the Pastoral Instruction on the Media, which was drafted in 1971 by the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications; and cofounder (1955) of the National Catholic Radio and Television Centre in Middlesex, England. Gray retired from his duties as archbishop in 1985.

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