Cardinal to join Minister jubilee

THIS summer St Benet's Catholic Church at Beccles will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its consecration- and the occasion will be marked by the visit of one of the most important figures within the Catholic Church.

The Church was consecrated on July 12 1908 by the Bishop of Northampton, 10 years after the foundation stone was positioned.

And amongst the celebrations during 2008 that the Church has planned to mark the anniversary, there will be a visit from the Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster.

The visit will take place on Saturday July 5, and will include a mass of thanksgiving and a special luncheon put on by the Church.

Father Anthony Sutch, Parish Priest at St Benet's Minster in Beccles, said that he was vey much looking forward to the visit: “We're trying to say thank you to Beccles for accepting us.
“Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is the top Catholic in England and Wales. He's a wonderful man and it is a great honour.”

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is one of only 85 cardinals in the world and was appointed as cardinal by Pope John Paul II in the 2001 Consistory.

He is also President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and represents England at the biggest events around the world.

Although St Benet's was consecrated in 1908, its history dates back to 1886 when Abbot Moore obtained permission from the Bishop of Northampton to found a church in Beccles, adjacent to the existing parish in nearby Bungay, which was founded by Benedictine monks of St Gregory, the Great of Downside Abbey in Somerset.

Dom Edmund Ford became the first parish Priest of Beccles in 1888 and he had the idea of finding a site to build a new church and Catholic school in the town.

The original idea of St Benet's was to establish a priory for a small community of monks, but this never came about. However as the Church was founded by and still is in the hands of the Monastic community it has the title of St Benet's Minster.

The building, constructed in Bath stone, is a careful re-creation in the Norman style of architecture and is the work of a local Architect, Francis Easto Banham, who is buried in the Churchyard.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the consecration of St Benet's, there will be a commemorative brochure on sale in the coming months.

 

 

By courtesy and reproduction from the Beccles and Bungay Journal