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Canon Tom Neylon is remembering a conversation he had on a recent visit to see his sister Mary in Cumbria. ‘My brother-in-law is a similar age to me,’ he tells the Pic, ‘and he said to me that he was thinking about retiring in two or three years’ time. He asked me, “Have you got any plans to retire?”.’ For Canon Tom, 63, retirement is the last thing on his mind. After all, next month he will become the new Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool. A new chapter and a new challenge, as he acknowledges. ‘The first thing is I won’t be attached to a parish, as I have been for the last 39 years, so that’ll be a big change,’ says the Bishop-elect, who will leave his post as parish priest at St Wilfrid’s in Widnes prior to his Episcopal Ordination Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral on 3 September. ‘There’s a lot I have to learn now as the role is totally different,’ he affirms, before continuing: ‘In terms of the scope of work, it’ll cover the whole of the diocese whereas I’ve been focusing on whichever parish I’ve been involved in and the local deanery. It’s a broadening of the scope, and then working with Archbishop Malcolm and Bishop Tom on the new things beginning to emerge when the pastoral plan is announced in Advent as a result of the Synod. That will shape some of the work going forward.’ Looking back, it was the example of parish priests which first fuelled his vocation. The son of Irish parents who had met in Warrington, he grew up in St Oswald’s Parish in Padgate. ‘There’s a very strong Catholic presence in this part of England,’ he says. ‘Throughout my life I’ve been privileged to witness testimony to the Catholic faith in families, in parishes and in schools. What particularly drew me into the priesthood were the priests I knew at the parish where I grew up. They and the other priests I met seemed to be content with what they were doing, serving people and serving God and there was an attraction in that.’ He was 16 when he began his training at St Joseph’s College, Upholland. ‘When I went to the seminary, I went with the view that if it is for me I will find out and if it is not for me I will find out as well.’ He got his answer. In 1982, Archbishop Derek Worlock selected him as the candidate from Liverpool Archdiocese to be among 12 priests ordained by Pope St John Paul II at a special Mass in Heaton Park, Manchester. The rest is a history he rolls off for us. ‘I spent four years as an assistant priest at St Cuthbert's, Wigan. This was followed by nine years in Skelmersdale as part of the team ministry. In 1996 I was appointed parish priest at St Julie's, St Helens. Over the next 24 years I also had responsibility for St Teresa's, Devon Street, and English Martyrs, Haydock.’ Having never strayed too far from his favourite rugby league team, Warrington Wolves, he says that ‘getting out across the diocese’ will be part of his new remit. ‘There are parts where I’ve worked and others where I’ve passed through, so it’ll be nice to get to know people across all the diocese. It’s quite a diverse geographical area – the Isle of Man covers a third of the landmass of the diocese and I’ve never been there so that’d be nice, just to get to know what parish life is like in all four corners and to get a better picture.’ Retirement? Not quite.

by Neil Sayer - Archdiocesan Archivist

Rumours of Father Lennon’s wealth circulated around the parish of Weld Bank, Chorley, following his death in 1897. The parishioners held back from contributing towards a headstone for his grave in the cemetery at St Gregory the Great, though they did eventually do so. In life, Father John Lennon had certainly been generous to them. The poor of the parish, and particularly those in distress, could always rely on a discreet handout. As his obituary said, ‘no deserving case of want came under his notice without evoking a responsive sympathy in his heart and prompt relief.’

His philanthropy in fact reached much further than the venerable precincts of Chorley. At least two Catholic churches in our Archdiocese exist through his generosity, as he funded the building of Sacred Heart at Chorley and Sacred Heart in Warrington. He also gave several thousand pounds to the schoolchapels at Longton and Withnell, and to the Catholic College at Upholland.

Born into a Liverpool family in 1830, he was sent to Douai and then to the English College in Lisbon to be trained for his priestly calling. It seems his ability was quickly recognised on his return to Liverpool, as a year after his Ordination he was given charge of the new Mission of St Mary and St John in Newton-leWillows, where he undertook the building of the church and presbytery. Following his appointment to Weld Bank in 1870, his younger brother James became Rector at Newton-le-Willows.

Father James had followed his brother to Douai and Lisbon and enjoyed an equally meteoric rise, becoming the first Rector of Sacred Heart in Hindsford and building the new church there at around the same time as his brother was doing the same a few miles away in Newtonle-Willows. Unfortunately, Father James seems to have created petty squabbles among his parishioners, and whilst his elder brother was funding the school, the brass band and the club in Weld Bank, Father James is the subject of more than one complaint among Bishop O’Reilly’s papers in the Archdiocesan Archives.

Father John was said to have been ‘possessed of private means’, though whether that wealth derived from the brother Edward whom he buried at Newton-le-Willows in 1866, or from earlier family money, isn’t clear. It is certain that he invested shrewdly and profitably in the railway companies and other stocks and shares that could be said to have provided the dotcom boom of their time. After his death his younger brother inherited what remained of his wealth - he claimed to have been ‘empty’ after his church-funding activities of the mid1890s. Father James, his executor, fell out with Bishop Whiteside possibly over his brother’s will. After he died in 1908, Father James was characterised as ‘a peculiar man and very touchy’. Canon Alfred Snow, the Diocesan Treasurer, also vaguely described the falling-out as ‘some wholly imaginary grievance’, despite which Father James ‘declared that he would not leave a penny to Liverpool’. In fact, he didn’t leave a penny to anyone. Having retired from working in the Diocese of Liverpool, he spent some time staying at Blairs College, near Aberdeen. This was the seminary for Scottish boys training to be Catholic priests, founded in 1829 as the successor to the secret institutions educating young men in the Highlands and Islands: those whose training was entirely in Scotland were known as ‘Heather Priests’. Father James had made the acquaintance of Rev Aeneas Chisholm, then the College Rector, and the College became the main recipient of the Lennon family benefactions. The church of St Mary, attached to the College, as well as a church in Colwyn Bay, were funded by Father Lennon – who, in 1898, became Monsignor Lennon. He lies buried at Blairs College, to which ultimately he had donated some £12,000. The College closed in 1986, and part of it is now a museum for Scotland’s Catholic heritage. The church has a memorial plaque to Monsignor Lennon and stained-glass windows in his honour.

Monsignor James Lennon