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Bishop Peter's Statement

In October 2010 the new parish of Blessed John Henry Newman was established consisting of the churches of St. Wulstan, Our Lady of Grace, St. James and St. Edmund Campion.

It had become clear that it was impossible for one priest to celebrate Sunday Mass in each of the four churches and serve the four communities separately. The Missionaries of St. Paul kindly sent Father Jude to assist Father Innocent for a temporary period.

I could not justify two priests serving a Mass going population of less than four hundred people in relation to the rest of the Diocese. I, therefore, asked the communities to submit a proposal for the parish to be served by one priest for my consideration so that a new arrangement could be implemented in the summer of 2012.

Father Innocent put together a Strategy Group made up of representatives from all four communities chaired by Steve Gill of Little Chalfont and facilitated by Angela O’Connell of Bourne End. I have the highest regard for the group who approached an almost impossible task professionally and dispassionately in the context of the Diocesan Strategy, Walking Humbly with Our God, and the Diocesan document, “A Thriving Catholic Community”. They have given a huge amount of themselves to the task, not to mention their time and expertise. Before Christmas they presented me with an Executive Summary of their conclusions and, when I returned from a post-Christmas break, their full report was on my desk.

I agreed with the Strategy Group that, for everyone’s sake, I should reach a conclusion as soon as possible in the New Year so that preparation could take place with the four communities for the implementation of my decision this summer. I have consulted with my advisers and with the Diocesan Trustees in readiness for this meeting. I am delighted that two of the Trustees, Monsignor Sean Healy, the Vicar General, and Father Brendan Killeen, the Judicial Vicar, are here with me together with Father Francis Higgins, the Dean of South Bucks Pastoral Area.

The Strategy Group undertook a detailed analysis of the four churches and decided that none of them was fit for purpose as the focus of the whole parish with the necessary spaces for worship and for community use, for administration and for the accommodation of a priest. The Group also realised that it did not make sense to look at the pastoral provision for the parish independent of the parish of St. Augustine and, of course, the school.

The Group has recommended a two-stage approach. For the first stage, the recommendation was that Blessed John Henry Newman Parish gather in one church only with the other three churches closing and that for the second stage all the stakeholders in the Catholic community in High Wycombe should look at the future together with a view to one church complex serving the whole area.

I have spoken with Father Willie and Father Innocent, and they are happy to form a group involving all the church and parish and school communities for this second stage looking to the future growth of the Catholic community, and I have asked that the Diocesan Trustees be represented on the group by Father Brendan Killeen.

With regard to the painful decision about the immediate future, I have decided that the parish should operate from two bases, namely, Our Lady of Grace and St. Wulstan’s and that the centres at St. James, Downley and St. Edmund Campion, Hazlemere should close by the summer. I am conscious of the sacrifice I am asking of the two communities at Downley and Hazlemere, and I hope that over the coming months we can all come to terms with the inevitable sadness of this decision. There must also be a generous welcome to the congregations from Downley and Hazlemere by the surrounding Catholic communities.

I am grateful to the Strategy Group for preparing ways for all the communities to adjust to the change resulting from this decision which is mine, and mine alone. It has been a difficult decision but I am sure that it is the right way forward, and I have every confidence in the priests and people of High Wycombe to respond wholeheartedly to the challenge to build the Church anew as a vibrant sign of the Kingdom of God.

Peter

Bishop of Northampton
25 January 2012

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