Post date: Sep 07, 2015 6:6:55 PM
Focus on MK Faith Landscape – Catholic Church
At our September 2016 meeting Father Allen Jones from the Catholic Church was our speaker on the Focus on MK Faith Landscape slot.
It was a very informative presentation, see summary below.
History
Fr Allan said much of the Catholic Churches history overlapped with that of the Anglican Church.
There were Christians in this area during Roman times, then pagan immigrants arrived (Saxons). When a king converted to Christianity his subjects did too. West Saxons took six years to convert. Most were converted by 640. There were travelling priests. In those days there were no division between faith and culture.
Then the Norman invaders arrived. They renamed churches to replace Saxon saints, eg there were a lot of St Marys.
1539-1570 – the church changed (the Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church). The Catholic Church disappeared locally for 300 years. Catholics came back to this area with the railways, most were Irish in origin.
1867 – There was an RC church in Wolverton.
The Oxford movement caused a split in the Anglican Church and some joined the Catholic Church.
Now
Currently, there are 12 locations locally with catholic services in 8 parishes.
Annually, the number of church goers are counted, and there are 4,000 nationally, but there are more Catholics and they come from 70 different countries.
Locally there are 8 priests, 3 deacons and 2 communities of sisters.
There are 1.2Bn Catholics world-wide. So, the church has to think global when looking at issues. The average Catholic is an African lady in her thirties with children.
MK is very diverse.
There is a Polish community that meets twice per week, as do other communities. There are lots of Catholics from Ghana.
Locally there are 5 RC primary schools and 1 RC secondary school.
50 years ago there was the second Vatican Council and the church started to look outwards and work with others.
Aim is to serve Catholics and others. In ecumenical partnerships with other denominations and share some church buildings.