Parish Meeting Wed 29th July 2015

Post date: Aug 03, 2015 9:21:2 AM

Parish Meeting with

Fr. Stephen Watson (Episcopal Vicar)

and Fr. Ian Hoskins (Dean)

Northumberland Deanery 4 – St. Paulinus & St. Wilfred

Agenda:

Fr. Stephen Watson (Episcopal Vicar) & Fr. Ian Hoskins (Dean) met the WHOLE Parish on Wednesday 29th July 2015 at 6.30pm to discuss the future of our parish and the churches within our area.

Summary of Minutes:

• • Fr. Watson opened the meeting with prayers and spoke of Mary Magdalene, how she found God.

  • Do not cling to the past, we can however plan and change what is ahead of us.

  • The deanery is short of priests with one priest having to serve 2 or 3 parishes, we must also look at the age profile of priests while continuing to look to the future.

  • The bishop has a responsibility towards priest’s health and therefore has specified that all parishes where possible must go to one Mass at the weekend.

  • In 2030 the Diocese estimates having 50 priests to serve 177 parishes.

  • To enable priests to serve several parishes, no parish is to have a 10/10.30am Sunday Mass.

  • At a previous Deanery meeting Fr. Harriott had agreed to a 9.30am Sunday Mass and Fr. Lee Barrett had said that he had no objection to celebrating a Saturday Vigil Mass at St. Paul’s, Cramlington.

  • No parish is to feel like a poor relation.

  • The Dean and Episcopal Vicar said that the prayer services of a parish should not be affected by the lack of a priest as many services can be lay led.

  • They also said that history has shown that in more troublesome times the church has survived, having in one period no priests for a hundred years in one country.

  • We must remain optimistic and pray that the church will survive.

  • Fr. Stephen Watson thanked Austin Todd for arranging priests for weekend Masses at St. John’s during Fr. Harriott’s hospitalisation. Austin was amazing at organising this.

  • Fr. Watson said this would be more difficult for any parish in the future due to the age profile of retired priests.

Questions Arising:

A question and answer session then followed, some points raised were as follows –

• • Parking – Gerry Killen said that following the final decision by the Dean, an approach will be made by the parish council to the local authority to consider increasing the parking around the church.

  • Getting Children Ready it time for Mass – Parents have to get their children ready for school at 9am, hopefully the 9.30am Sunday Mass should not be a problem.

  • Priest’s Salary/Stipend to be shared between twinned parishes.

  • Priests from other countries – Fr Watson said that apart from Malta, England has more priests per capita than any other country in the world. There would also be the possibility of conflict due to local or national traditions.

  • Implementation – No specific date was mentioned at the meeting but it was implied that this will happen sometime in Sept 2015.

  • A final plan will be issued to all parishes following consultation with existing and new priests to the deanery.

Prayers – Fr. Hoskins did mention after the meeting of the important need to pray for vocations.

The meeting ended with a pray led by Fr. Stephen