Two items of news extremely positive for the supporters of Tradition have come in from England: the Fraternity of St Peter have been given a church in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, only a short time after the Institute of Christ the King had been given the second of two churches in neighbouring dioceses; and the Bishop of Portsmouth has established a bi-ritual parish in Gosport, a town on the South coast near Portsmouth itself, where Fr Serafino Lanzetta will be Parish Priest.
The website of St Mary's, Warrington, a fine Pugin church in the centre of the city, has this message from Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool.
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| Bishop McMahon, as he was, at the LMS Priest Training Conference in Ratcliffe College, Leicester. |
ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE ARCHBISHOP
REGARDING THE FUTURE OF ST MARY’S
“I have invited the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter to come to the archdiocese and to have responsibility for St Mary’s Church, Warrington. In due course this will become a centre for the celebration of the extraordinary form of Mass and the sacraments. The priests of this fraternity will not, however, assume pastoral responsibility for St Mary’s parish, which will be the responsibility of Fr David Heywood from September.”
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| Stars mark the location of St Walburge's Preston (top), St Mary's, Warrington (right) and SS Peter & Paul, New Brighton (left) |
This brings the number of dioceses in England who have welcomed one or other of the Traditional Institutes to five. They are Portsmouth (where the FSSP have a canonically erected house of residence, in Reading); Northampton (where the FSSP has an official 'Chaplaincy' established by Bishop Doyle); Liverpool (where the FSSP will now have St Mary's Warrington); Shrewsbury (where the Institute of Christ the King are the custodians of the Shrine Church of SS Peter and Paul in New Brighton in the Wirral), and Lancaster (where Bishop Campbell last year gave the Institute of Christ the King the magnificent church of St Walburge's, Preston).
The clustering of traditional places of worship in the North of England is not a coincidence: England's northern dioceses have a long-standing liberal reputation and are extremely short of clergy. They were served by by the notoriously 'progressive' Ushaw seminary until it closed, for lack of students, in 2010. Manchester (diocese of Salford) and York (diocese of Middlesbrough) have both recently established Oratories of St Philip Neri, in both of which the Traditional Mass is offered every Sunday. In each of case the future of a fine historic church has been assured, along with the pastoral care of the people and the hope of future vocations.
But there is more good news from England's south coast: the appointment of Fr Serafino Lanzetta as Parish Priest of St Mary, Gosport (diocesan website), to take effect on 8th September; the Parish newsletter, in fact, already calls him the Parish Priest and tells us that from next week:
'Latin Mass in the Extraordinary Form (sung in Gregorian Chant) will be
celebrated in St Mary’s Church at 7am Monday to Friday and 9.30am on
Saturday. All are welcome.'
Fr Lanzetta is the author of an important work, so far available only in Italian: 'The Second Vatican Council: A Pastoral Council'.
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| Fr Lanzetta (holding the card for the Last Gospel) at the LMS Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Caversham; he was subdeacon. |
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