Sep 9, 2010 / 12:05 pm
A traditional plaid Scottish design, or tartan, has been created to commemorate the Pope's visit to Great Britain this month. The North Carolina creator of the design said the interlocking pattern of stripes tells the story of the Catholic Church in Scotland while interweaving elements of next week's trip.
With just a week remaining before the Holy Father's arrival to the nation's two major cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Scottish Church announced the novelty of the first ever papal visit tartan on Thursday. Matthew Newsome, director of the Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin, North Carolina, drew it up especially for the Sept. 16 occasion.
"Thrilled" that his design was chosen to be woven by a pair of Scottish companies for the trip, Newsome said that every element of the multi-color traditional pattern has a meaning behind it.
The tartan's "white line on blue field draws upon Scotland's national colors while the green reflects the lichens growing on the stones of Whithorn in Galloway," he said, explaining that it was there that the missionary St. Ninian arrived 1,600 years ago.