I read on the NLM tonight that Fr Simon Henry, who I remember as a fellow student in my Ushaw days, has been appointed as parish priest of the first personal parish for the 1962 missal in England. Congratulations to Fr Simon. The parish is that of St Vincent, Toxteth (pictured above) in the diocese of Liverpool. This is a very important development for this country. It will be interesting to see how it fares. The Rise and Pray blog offers some thoughts on the news.
6 comments:
This news from Liverpool is most interesting. There seems no good reason why this cannot happen in most, if not all, dioceses. Where next, I wonder !
Wonderful as it is that bishops are recognising the value of the older use of the Roman Rite, it seems dangerous to encourage these personal parishes; it scares me that liberal dioceses could use this as a way to separate and isolate the traditionalists...
I agree Augustine that this could lead to a traditionalist ghetto. It`s for this reason that I`m not too keen on a personal prelature. Once all the seminaries start teaching the EF then it should be a part of the experience of more Catholics. I don`t know what the plan is but a number of personal parishes in a diocese with all the sacraments in the EF can work with `normal` parishes offering only the Mass in the EF.
I share Augustine's concern that there are dangers in setting up personal parishes. In the long term they should, hopefully, not be required.
However, in the short term, many faithul Catholics will find in them the bolt-hole they so need to help them sustain their own spiritual lives.
I'm a bit sceptical, though, that we will see many personal parishes.
There are rumours on 'Holy Smoke' that at least one Anglo-Catholic bishop may swim the Tiber if Lambeth is spectacularly awful, and WDTPRS hints that the Holy Father may be setting a precendent with a personal prelature potentially being offered to the SSPX; one can't help but wonder if a similar scenario could see convert Anglican clergy allowed to work in the Catholic dioceses under a similar scheme. I have heard that the Pope has not been impressed with how the English heirarchy has handled Anglican conversions since 1992...
There are some interesting comments on Fr John Boyle's blog regarding the Liverpool initiative. One of the comments suggests that St Vincent's is not to be a personal parish as such but incorporated instead with the cathedral parish.
Post a Comment