News

If you’ve got any news from your parish that you’d like featured e-mail us with the details at: catholicpictorial@rcaol.co.uk

Students at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome celebrated their academic Mass on Sunday 7 November when Michael Harwood a Deacon, from St Peter and St Paul Crosby received his degree certificate of Bachelor of Theology from Saint Mary’s University, Twickenham. Michael received his certificate from College Rector, Canon Philip Gillespie. He studied for the degree for three years at the Beda College and graduated with first class honours. He says, ‘I had not studied formally for many years so getting back into the routine of lectures, essays and examinations was quite a challenge. I am pleased to report that by the grace of God and with excellent teaching and support I graduated with first class honours. ‘The course covered a range of subjects that fell broadly into the categories of theology and philosophy; neither of which I had studied previously. ‘Two years of philosophy were certainly a challenge for me. Ethics and moral theology were complex yet fascinating subjects. I am interested in history so Church history from the beginning of the Church via the middle ages to the Reformation and up to Vatican II was right up my street. Our in-depth study of scripture really brought the Old and New Testaments to life and gave new perspectives. As you might expect we studied the theology of the sacraments and liturgy which included practical elements such as the rites of Baptism, Marriage, RCIA and funeral rites. ‘An important part of the academic programme is the reflective report and journal based on the experience of a summer placement each year. I was very fortunate to have three long and fruitful placements first at Saint Mary’s and Saint Columba’s, Isle of Man, then at Saint Mary’s Chorley and at Saint Sylvester’s, Liverpool. I am indebted to those parish priests and at St Peter and St Paul, Crosby, the deacons, parish administrators and parishioners for their welcome and support.’ Michael is now studying for the Graduate Diploma in Theology.

Pupils, staff and friends of St Richard’s Catholic Primary School in Skelmersdale welcomed Bernard Sweeney into school last month to present him with an award from the Lancashire Association of School Governing Bodies for his outstanding contribution to the work as a governor at St Richard’s over many years. Bernard has served on the governing body since 1988 and continues to do so today. He received the Lancashire Association of School Governing Bodies Special Recognition Award for his outstanding service to the work of school governance. Bernard has been linked to the school for decades as his children attended the school and wife, Joyce, was school secretary from 1973 until her retirement in 2001.

The Queen’s Scout Award is the culmination of everything that a young person in Scouting achieves. Participants commit to developing and challenging themselves in many new ways. spending time in new places, meeting new people and learning new skills. Developing their communication, organisational and teamworking skills. Standards are very high, but with a choice of how it is completed based on skills, interests and talents. Personal commitment, determination, self-discipline and effort are required, sustained over at least 12 months. Those who achieve the award are invited to the National Scout Service and Parade of Queen’s Scouts at Windsor Castle. Lucy Fol is a Beaver Leader at 4th Crosby & District (St William of York) Scout Group. She has progressed through Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Young Leaders, becoming an adult leader just before the pandemic. Her commitment to Scouting is outstanding. To achieve the top award, Lucy first completed the Platinum and Diamond Awards, these correlate with DofE

by Neil Sayer, Archdiocesan Archivist Many things have changed about the Liverpool Catholic Blind Asylum since this appeal for funds was published 75 years ago this month. The Brunswick Road premises were demolished some time ago, the institution is no longer run by nuns, and to a degree its very purpose has changed. Liverpool was at the forefront of caring for and educating blind people. The institution that became the Royal School for the Blind (now in Wavertree) was founded in 1791, the first such school anywhere in the world. At that time many adults became blind through infection, disease and poor hygiene, causes that we either avoid or treat relatively easily today. Although attempts were made throughout the 19th century to cure some forms of blindness, the institutions then established in several British cities were intended not as hospitals but as shelters where blind people could be cared for in a safe environment and taught trades. The trades, such as basket weaving and mat making, were partly intended to pay for the institutions themselves, as there were regular sales of works, but also to give blind people a means of making a living if they went out into the world away from the institution. A more general education for blind people was only developed later, with the invention of Braille among other written languages. During the course of the 20th century educational thinking and legislation led gradually to the absorption into mainstream education of children once deemed as ‘handicapped’. Among a wave of foundations of schools for blind people in the 1830s and 1840s –at Exeter, Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham, for instance – the first school formed by a religious organisation was that of the Catholic Blind Institute established in Islington, Liverpool in April 1841. In 1866 it moved into more spacious premises on Brunswick Street. The Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul agreed to take on the running of the asylum in 1871, and they remained in charge until 1996, when it came under lay leadership. By then there had been many more changes: St Vincent’s School for the Blind was built in West Derby and opened in 1901. This became through many modifications a Specialist School for Sensory Impairment. St Vincent’s School is still a residential school offering pupils from across the north west access to the full national curriculum. Allied with it is Christopher Grange, built in the 1970s as a residential and nursing home designed specifically for the needs of the visually impaired. It provides rehabilitation services, support and training, and palliative care. Much has changed since 1947, but the Liverpool Catholic Blind Institute remains a charity, and it still welcomes our donations, at New Year or any other time. Bronze and Silver plus three elements of Scouting: International, Community and Values. The final step was to complete Gold DofE, plus the essential Scouting elements and present her achievements to the wider community. As an ambassador for Scouting, Lucy represented the UK at the 2019 World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia, USA. She has served her local parish community, St William of York, supporting Little Church and reading regularly at Mass. For the physical and skill elements Lucy participated in dance and singing classes, performing regularly in local events, her residential service challenge took place at Brathay Outdoor Centre in Cumbria, where she worked as part of the service team to cook, clean, and plan activities for more young people to experience outdoor adventures. Lucy’s expedition was completed with her school group from Holy Family Catholic High School, hiking in the Peak District completing 50 miles over 4 days and 3 nights. Lucy is already highly decorated, completing all the awards available to young people, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond awards, achieving her Young Leader belt before completing her adult leader training to achieve her wood badge. Now she deservedly joins the elite of Scouting as the first Queen Scout recipient of her group, 4th Crosby (St William of York). Many congratulations to Lucy for the inspiration and example she shows to other young people and the time and energy she invests to ensure that the next generation of young people have exciting opportunities and adventures that will build on her own experiences.

On Saturday 6 November members of Pax Christi Merseyside joined the COP26 Coalition to walk through Liverpool. Like thousands throughout the world, we were asking our government to take the steps necessary to prevent devastation to the environment and human life. We carried a message from Pope Francis: ‘What kind of a world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? The question not only concerns the environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal’ Pax Christi works to resolve many of the underlying problems which contribute to the climate crisis, and we feel that the threat to the environment from nuclear weapons is not sufficiently recognised. With nearly 14,000 nuclear weapons, the nine nuclear-armed states possess the capacity to destroy humanity and devastate the environment through war or nuclear accident. A nuclear exchange between the USA and Russia would lead to nuclear winter and global famine. During the march we carried another poster stating: War causes climate change; Climate change causes War. We believe that to end global warning, we need to end war. We supported the call to keep global heating to no more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. As part of this, we call for the military to be included in emissions targets. Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) estimate that 6% of all global emissions are the result of the world’s combined military activities and of the industries that provide their equipment. This estimate does not include the environmental effect of fighting wars, nor the potential long term devastation to the earth, the climate and human life in the event of the deployment of nuclear weapons. Pax Christi also calls for a shift in priorities and resources away from military and war, towards just and sustainable peace. Our banners stated: Over the next 4 years the UK government has promised £24 billion for the climate and £188 billion for the military. (Stats taken from Campaign against the Arms Trade.) We plan to continue our work for the goals of COP26 by encouraging our government to sign the United Nations Treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and to participate in the Review which is to be held in March 2022.

Bootle parishioners have been busy restoring a statue of Our Lady which had been discarded in the grounds of a derelict convent for many years and constructing a grotto to house it. It arrived at St Robert Bellarmine’s on the back of a trailer on a very grey March morning last year and immediately Anne Taylor got down to the laborious work of scraping off the layers of old paint and filling in all the cracks to begin to make it presentable again. Meanwhile, Terry McDonough started preparing the area where the grotto was to be sited in a sheltered but prominent corner. After a while Terry’s design of a solid angled roof supported by columns of recycled bricks began to take shape. After weeks of hard work, on the morning of Wednesday 12 May the positioning and final cementing into the grotto of Our Lady and St Bernadette took place. All involved in the preparation and restoration of the statues and the site gathered and applauded the completion of the project. Finally on the following Sunday, 16 May, parishioners looked on as Monsignor Stephen Alker blessed the shrine of Our Lady and St Bernadette. Local people comment on how beautiful the shrine looks in its prominent position, with Our Lady and St Bernadette surrounded by multi coloured flowers looking out over the parish.

The statue of Our Lady before and after restoration

by Peter Ross On Thursday 9 December, Archbishop Malcolm McMahon ordained Derek Lloyd to the diaconate at Oscott College. Derek has been in priestly formation for the archdiocese for one and a half years following his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Prior to this, Derek ministered as a Priest in the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool. He is 43 and originally hails from Tipton in the Black Country. Derek studied at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, and served in Anglican parishes for a total of seventeen years. After a number of appointments, he found himself in his dream role as the Vicar of Saint Agnes and Saint Pancras Church in South Liverpool. By this point, however, Derek had grown to live with a persistent longing, a longing that never went away. Through many conversations and time spent in prayer, Derek eventually concluded, that he was being drawn into fuller communion with the Catholic Church. Derek is immeasurably grateful for everything the Church of England has been to him. Indeed, he found it acutely painful to leave his community. But the urge was so powerful and it was by conscience that he acted in the end. Early in 2020, he took the decision and approached the archdiocese. This move involved surrendering home, security and ministry. Archbishop Malcolm picked up on this in his homily, at the ordination Mass: ‘Derek, you have shown enormous fidelity to the Gospel and perseverance to the call of the Lord in your life as a priest in the Church of England. To leave that behind and enter into fuller communion has, I know, been very hard for you’. The Archbishop preached primarily on the Deacon’s role as the guardian of the chalice. He made it very clear, that the chalice of the Lord’s blood is not a cup of privilege, but rather a cup of ‘the tears of humanity; tears of sadness and joy, disbelief and faith’. He also spoke about the Deacon as the one who is attuned to the people, both in the liturgy and out in the world. Like Christ, the Deacon serves all of God’s children, reaching out to those who ‘need human contact, the lost and forgotten’. Nevertheless, Deacons show that God’s care is not only a sorrowful love but a joyful love, expressed most fully in Jesus’ resurrection. Derek is clearly no stranger to such service, but now he begins a new service, a service among us, as part of our archdiocesan family. A number of Derek’s friends were able to join him and to share in his celebration together with Bishop Tom Neylon and several of our own priests who came along to support him too. During January, Derek will be on placement in the Parish of Saint Wilfrid, Widnes. Afterwards, he will return to Oscott, in anticipation of his priestly ordination, God-willing, during the summer. Please continue to pray for an increase in all vocations within our Archdiocese. Let us pray that the Lord will send many a faithful worker into his great and wonderful harvest. Pictures: Peter Ho, Oscott College