Leeds diocese closes thriving Latin Mass parish
By Anna Arco
15 August 2008

A Novus Ordo Mass being celerated at St John the Evangelist, Allerton Bywater

Protests, prayers and petitions have not brought the parishioners of St John the Evangelist, Allerton Bywater very far. This Sunday, the last extraordinary form Mass will be celebrated in their church, one of seven due to be closed in Leeds diocese as part of a diocesan consolidation programme.

Parishioners sought to save the church by petitioning the bishop, asking for St John's to be erected as a personal parish where the ordinary and extraordinary forms of Mass would be celebrated in Latin. They received no response. Earlier they had written to the bishop asking him to hold off closing the church. Again they received no response.

John Grady, the diocesan press officer, said that the last Mass would be celebrated at St John's on Sunday, after which it would follow the "normal procedure for closure".

He said: "They [the diocesan authorities and the trustees of the diocese of Leeds] will have to decide what happens to it then, whether it gets sold and so on."

A letter from the vicar general to the parish priest Fr Mark Lawler announced that the date of the closure had been moved forward from September to August and that Fr Lawler's ministry was "confrontational and caused divisions" and that the bishop felt unable to give him another appointment in an "office in the diocese".

But Fr Lawler's parishioners have come to his defence. Malcolm Brumwell, a parishioner and a member of the parish pastoral council, said: "We are 110 per cent behind Fr Lawler."

Parishioners have prepared a letter to send to the nuncio as well as a letter pointing out where they feel the bishop and the diocesan authorities have breached Canon Law in the process of closing the church.

Bishop Roche's pastoral letter on Trinity Sunday said that six parish churches and the chapel of ease in the Wakefield and Pontefract deanery were to be closed.

In the letter he wrote: "I am conscious of those among you who have invested so much of your lives and energy into these parishes which will no longer exist. I am aware of your pain and your sense of bereavement at this time. I believe these changes, however, to be necessary in order to put the Church on a better footing to meet the missionary needs both of the present day and of the years to come."

There has been no episcopal visit to Allerton Bywater since 1998, which parishioners claim contravenes Canon Law. Mr Grady admitted that this "isn't usual".

The November 2007 letter and proposal from the Allerton Bywater parish pastoral council to the bishop and the committee stated: "As you are aware, the style of liturgy here at St John's is a little different from many of the surrounding parishes - indeed, radically different from St Benedict's next door.

"We realise that there are those who think that the style of liturgy here has been imposed on us by Fr Mark. This is patently untrue. As a community, we are wholeheartedly behind Fr Mark in his mission to serve Christ, His Church and His people. The parishioners' comments appended to this proposal are genuine and heartfelt."

The proposal, which the parish council drew up after consultation with Fr Lawler and fellow parishioners, came as a response to the bishop's plan "Providing Priests for People" for the future of the diocese in the face of declining vocations. It said that the parish was specially contributing to the liturgical diversity of the diocese, as Mass at St John was being celebrated with the priest facing ad orientem and in Latin. It also pointed towards a small growth in the parish and asked for the bishop to delay closing the church until the neighbouring deanery had been reviewed.

"Providing Priests for People" began in February 2004 when a DVD presented by Bishop Roche was distributed explaining what he saw as the needs of the diocese. This was accompanied by articles in the Catholic Post, the diocesan newspaper and the website as well as one deanery meeting with the bishop in September 2007.

In an e-mail to one of the parishioners of Holy Family Church, Chequerfield, another of the seven churches that are to be closed, the vicar general of Leeds diocese, Mgr Michael McQuinn, wrote: "He [the bishop] then opened a major period of consultation with all the parishioners in the Pontefract and Wakefield Deaneries in September last year which ran until the end of November.

"He worked hard through the distribution of DVDs, the use of the website and the Catholic Post to put forward his reasons for adjusting the structures of his diocese and invited suggestions to ameliorate his proposals. No such suggestions were brought forward. This was announced in his pastoral letter of Trinity Sunday which described the changes he needs to make."

Fr Lawler was brought into Allerton Bywater in 1999 to help out the parish priest who was ill.

Fr Lawler was kept on as the priest in residence retired and little by little he introduced parishioners to the Novus Ordo in Latin and plain chant.

The altar was moved back to its original place and after the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, liberalised the traditional Latin Mass, 60 parishioners signed a petition asking Fr Lawler to celebrate the old Mass.