A Catholic church in England in which a Victorian-era mystic was said to have received rapturous visions of the Crucifixion has been saved from closure. Source: Catholic Herald.
The Liverpool Archdiocese announced this year that either St Mary’s, Wigan, where Teresa Higginson used to worship, or nearby St John’s Church will close.
But on Sunday, Liverpool Archbishop Malcolm McMahon said he had decided to keep the churches open.
Both churches pre-date the Catholic Emancipation of 1829, with St Mary’s built in the neo-Gothic style in 1818 and St John’s in the neo-Classical style a year later.
In a statement read out at Masses, Archbishop McMahon said the churches will be clustered with St Patrick’s Church, Wigan, to form the parish of St William.
“I have listened to the concerns raised by all three communities and by the wider community of the archdiocese,” he said.
“I know that my decision will be received with joy in the parish.”
St Mary’s is the church where Ms Higginson worshipped in the late 19th century when she was said to have been oppressed by the Devil and beginning to receive divine apparitions.
It was also the church were Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, began his priestly ministry as a curate following his ordination.
St John’s, formerly overseen by Jesuits who ran a mission in the Lancashire town between 1686 and 1933, is acknowledged as one of the most beautiful Catholic churches in England and was included in Fifty Catholic Churches to See Before You Die, the acclaimed 2020 book by Elena Curti.
The future of both churches, each of which are extremely well attended by local Catholics and produce disproportionate vocations for the archdiocese, was thrown into crisis earlier this year with the death of Fr John Johnson, the parish priest of St Mary’s.
A solution to keeping St Mary’s open was sought by converting it into a shrine church under the custody of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.
The canons, who celebrate the liturgy exclusively in the Tridentine rite, came out twice a week from New Brighton, the Wirral, on a provisional basis to offer Mass and confessions.
Although there was no local opposition to the Masses, which were well attended, the archdiocese decided that they would not continue.
FULL STORY
Liverpool archdiocese U-turns over church closure where Victorian mystic had ecstasies (By Simon Caldwell, Catholic Herald)
