Father James ‘Big Jim’ Doherty
Well-loved Glaswegian Catholic priest known for his witty sermons and his devotion to the poor
FATHER JAMES DOHERTY, who has died from cancer aged 68, was a popular Catholic priest in Glasgow whose charisma, and physical presence, earned him the nickname “Big Jim”.
His sermons were both radical and funny, blending scholarship with concern for the marginalised and a subversive wit. Parishioners compared him to Billy Connolly.
He was born in the Gorbals on August 24 1953. His family had migrated from Co Donegal and his father died when he was young. He had five sisters and a brother, Charlie, who was killed in a pub in the 1990s. Aged 17, Jim had his first and last drop of alcohol: he did not like it, and his mother said he had already picked several addictions so it made no sense to add another.
Top of the list were reading and religion. After a spell working at the Glasgow Corporation housing department, he entered St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross, in the 1970s, and ministry in 1979. It was in the aftermath of Vatican II, the reforming council that among other things sought to refocus the energies of the Church on helping the poor.
The Church changed slowly, however. In Doherty’s first parish house in the West End of Glasgow, the assistant priests had one small room each, while the monsignor occupied the entire top floor, keeping one room for his golf clubs.
Appointing himself “shop steward”, Doherty demanded a sitting room for the worker bees. The monsignor reminded him that he was not the parish priest yet. “In that case,” Doherty retorted, “you can be parish priest when that phone rings at three in the morning for the last rites or a hospital visit.” The priests got their sitting room.
Not every priest met his high standards. One placement was brief because Doherty and his brother priest fell out: after a fire, Doherty claimed, the priest and his housekeeper were spotted escaping through the same window.
Doherty found a real home at St Vincent de Paul in Thornliebank, as curate, then parish priest – establishing himself as a dynamic cleric who drew in rich and poor, drug addicts and doctors; Celtic manager Tommy Burns came to hear him.
Doherty redecorated the interior of his church without spending a penny by persuading parishioners to donate their own time and money.
His bluntness irked the bishops, but to the laity it spelt sincerity and a lack of snobbery. An oft-repeated, ribald story told of Doherty ringing up a woman who had not been to church for years to see if she would like her home blessed. “The old priest never came to see us,” said the woman, “because of our living arrangements – you see, I’m living with my partner and we’ve three bairns out of wedlock.”
“I’m here to bless your house, honey, not judge your circumstances,” replied Doherty. “Where do you live?”
“Oh, thank you father. We live in a flat, our name is Smith, but press the top buzzer. There are Smiths below us, but you don’t want to go there because they’re a couple of poofs.”
“Is that right? Well, see, if I do press the wrong buzzer and I get the two poofs, I’ll just say: ‘Hello you two poofs, can you tell me where the two fornicating adulterers and their three bastard children live?’ ”
In 2005 he addressed the Scottish Parliament. “Having a morality and moralising are two different things,” he said. “My Church has been trying to get its own house in order since it began.”
In 1997 Doherty was diagnosed with leukaemia and an admirer wrote to the Glasgow Herald asking that the people pray for a “living saint” so respected across sectarian divides that “the Orange Order do not allow their bands to play music when marching past his church”.
Having to retire early, he was allotted a run-down house that he refitted, sending the bill to the diocese. The story goes that the archdiocese sent it back and so Doherty called, demanding to speak to the archbishop, Cardinal Winning. Winning rang back that night, declaring in his rich Clydeside burr: “I heard what you said, Jim, and I am aghast!”
“Aye, and I was very nearly gassed by that condemned fire you left me with,” replied Doherty. The bills were paid.
The Catholic hierarchy, Doherty believed, needed to be humbler – penitential in the wake of the abuse scandal, particularly. But he loved the Church and after 10 years of sick leave was called back into ministry as parish priest of St Joachim’s, Carmyle, where he blazoned across the side of the church the words “Smile, you’re in Carmyle”. He restored the building, creating a Blessed Sacrament chapel and installing new stained glass.
This lasted five years, until friends found him a house on the south side of the city to retire in for good; there he collected icons, paintings and piles of books. He liked to listen to country music and Irish folk. He did not own a mobile phone or know how to operate a computer. He worked as a supply priest and was much sought after for his wise counsel.
In a period when some Catholics were campaigning for women to join the priesthood, Doherty offered this observation of the clerical life: “After this Mass I shall go to the kitchen, where the microwave is my chef. I’ll have a loveless night in bed, and I’ll wake up by my big old self. So, women, don’t be moaning that ye can’t be a priest.”
He summed up his approach to pastoral work as: “People are God.” What Christ wants from the Church, he proclaimed, “is broken healers.”
In late 2021 he was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He is survived by his five sisters.