In 1982 John Paul II became the first Pope to visit Scotland. On an unusually pleasant first day of June some 300,000 people, supposedly the biggest crowd ever assembled in Scotland, gathered at Glasgow's Bellahouston Park to attend Mass. During the event, John Paul was offered several symbolic gifts including a pipe banner with the Pope's coat of arms, a piece of Caithness glass and a firkin of whisky. He was also given a Scotland football shirt and a football: presumably in recognition of the former goalkeeping Pope's interest, rather than Scotland's achievements, in the sport. As we will see in Chapter 5, not all Scots welcomed the papal visit but for the Church that organised it, it was a triumphal seal on a century of growth and integration.

Migration often produces a subtle but important shift in the migrant's relationship to his or her faith. In societies with a single shared religion, the faith is carried as much by social institutions and habitual patterns of behaviour as by any individual, with conscious thought, choosing every time to make this or that act of affirmation. Like the rain, it is just there. The migrant can no longer be accidentally or passively religious but must make a positive effort and, because it is rarely a comfortable experience, migration offers good reasons to make that effort. Apart from the hardship which drives them to leave their native lands in search of a better future, migrants often feel adrift and at a loss in an alien environment.