The Scottish Catholic Observer was Scotland's only national Catholic newspaper, founded in 1885. It ceased publication in 2020. It featured news of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland as well as regular international church news and reports from the Vatican. For most of the twenty-first century, it was owned by The Catholic Herald newspaper group.
Weekly editions contained local, national, and international news, opinion pages, letters, education news and reviews, in addition to regular reader competitions. The paper also listed births, deaths, and marriages across Scotland. Much of its exclusive news was later picked up by the mainstream media.[2]
The paper carried regular features on Scottish Catholic life and history, weekly columnists alongside an Ecumenical coverage which keeps readers up to date with Scottish Inter-Church dialogue and projects.
The Scottish Catholic Observer was redesigned and relaunched in 2008 with editor Liz Leydon, a former Scotsman journalist, and manager Rebecca Rigg.[3][4] In June 2016, deputy editor Ian Dunn took over as editor,[5]